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CERTIFY (STart Vol 3, #4, 10/88) and SPEED (STart Vol 3, #2, Special Issue #4, 1988) are two little programs by Dave Small and Dan Moore that appeared a few months ago. CERTIFY reads a whole floppy disk, and reports any bad sectors found. SPEED checks the rotation speed of your floppy drive. VKILLER is a public domain virus killer by George Woodside. A large class of virus programs hide in the boot sector of your floppy disk, and insinuate themselves into your system from there. VKILLER is intended to root these things out. Unfortunately, VKILLER will treat any boot disk as potentially infected. Although somewhat limited, VKILLER is cleverly done, and potentially a lifesaver. HARD DRIVE UTILITIES. ICD, Supra, and other manufacturers supply a collection of hard drive utilities with their drives. They range from completely reformatting the drive to enabling a hard drive autoboot. If you have a hard drive, sooner or later you'll need one of these tool kits. TUNEUP! is a commercial defragger from Michtron. Since fragmentation is a chronic problem with all hard drives, you'll need a defragger to perform periodic housekeeping. TUNEUP! works well and is easy to use. TURTLE by George Woodside is the most popular of the public domain backup programs. The latest, Version 3.0, has a new collection of bells and whistles, and comes with a companion, TERRAPIN, that addresses one of TURTLE's most serious weaknesses: backing up files that are too big for a floppy disk. UNTURTLE is the inverse of TURTLE; it restores files and folders from floppies to the hard drive. Shareware, from Mike Matthews. FILE UTILITIES. ARC521 is the latest version of the ARC utility package for the ST. Public domain, from Howard Chu. ARC programs allow you to combine one or more files into one file that takes up less space than the originals. All the data from each file is preserved, and the contents can be extracted to reproduce the original form. An essential utility, especially if you do any uploading or downloading. ARCSH197 is a mouse-driven "shell" that allows you to run ARC521 without all the dialogue box and command line silliness. If you've been ARCing without it, you've been torturing yourself. Shareware, from Charles Johnson. FCU is a utility that I don't want to live without. It compares two files and reports the differences. Doesn't sound like much? Ever back up a hard drive and wonder if the backup is any good? Or copy a bunch of files while reorganizing, and feel that horrible nagging doubt just after deleting the originals? FCU can set your mind at rest. This program is a bit memory-hungry; it reads both files into memory, then does the compare. Not sure what it does if there isn't enough memory... Public domain, by Richard Morris. LSORT sorts an ASCII file. Return/Line Feed sequence is taken to be the end of a "record." I've used this program, in concert with Word Perfect's merge facility, to sort an address list by zip, by name, whatever. Handy when you don't have a database program. Public domain, by Don Farmer. PDIR is a public domain directory list program by Henrique Veludo. This program will trace a whole directory or selected portion and list the files on screen, disk, or printer. Unlike most others, it can show the status byte which indicates whether the file has been backed up, hidden, locked, etc. This little beast sometimes infuriates me by bombing out in the middle of a listing--often a minor change in the directory will get rid of the abort. I use it to check on which files have and haven't been backed up recently, or just to get a complete list of all the files on a disk. UIS II (Universal Item Selector II) has been reviewed in Current Notes. If you don't have it, get it. It's an amazingly versatile replacement for the TOS file selector. Commercial product, by Application & Design Software. WHEREIS is another of those clever and useful public domain programs by Keith Ledbetter. Forgot where you put a file? Wonder how many copies of a particular file you have, and where they are? No problem. Point this little ferret at a drive, give it a piece of the name (with wild cards), and turn it loose. It'll search the whole partition and report all the matches it finds. It even has an option to search all ARC files as well. UIS II will do a similar search, but won't dip into ARC files. Besides, WHEREIS gives you the whole list at once. MISCELLANEOUS. We gotta have a category like this, right? The ones that don't fit well anywhere else? SUPER BOOT is shareware, from Gordon Moore. I've mentioned this outstanding program here before, and just installed Version 5.5 on my system. In a nutshell, SUPER BOOT allows you to set up multiple system configurations, with different combinations of autorun programs, with virtually any combination of your desk accessories, and pick the one you want with a function key at boot time. In its recent versions, SUPER BOOT uses a little PD program, STARTGEM, to automatically run a GEM program after everything else is done. A most valuable package, more than worth the registration fee of $15. FOGGER is copyright Antic Publishing, but was available on CompuServe when I found it. It may have been published in Antic, February '87, but I couldn't find a reference in the online index. FOGGER runs through an ASCII file (a document, really), and computes two reading level statistics, a difficulty level, and word and sentence counts. Useful in a minor way, if you'd like to check on whether something you're writing is presented at the level you want. There are several much more powerful programs for this sort of thing in the PC world, but not much available in the ST community. RESTART from Tom Hudson (STart Vol 3, #2), and HNDYWIPE, public domain from John Eidsvoog, perform similar functions. Both give you a way to do a cold boot without turning off power to the computer. RESTART runs in the AUTO folder, and sets a key combination you can use at (almost) any time. Some programs will interfere with it, though, causing the key combo to get lost. I'm not entirely sure why one would put HNDYWIPE in an AUTO folder, but the documentation talks about turning on all the equipment at once, with HNDYWIPE sitting in a floppy disk AUTO folder, rebooting until the hard drive autoboot takes over. A dangerous practice, that. I just run it from the desktop when RESTART fails. There's another class of utility programs that we don't have space for: picture conversions. Perhaps another time. One last thing. If you have an idea or suggestion you'd like to pass on, drop me a note. I can be reached on the ARMUDIC BBS (see the back pages of this issue), by mail through Current Notes, or by CompuServe (my PPN is 70117,2565). Use EASYPLEX for CompuServe messages; my visits there are irregular these days. *************** * JUNE 1989 * *************** XL TO ST FILE TRANSFERS When I bought my new ST, the venerable 8-bit system had to go; there just wasn't room for me, the wife, and two computers in the bedroom. Sometimes, honored Spouse hints that there may not be room for one, but I don't want to talk about that... It seems there were some files accumulated over the years that I really didn't want to throw away. It'd be nice, thought I, to transfer them to the ST before disposing of the 8-bit system. But how? The answer was to connect the two computers with a null modem, and "upload" those files to the ST. I had purchased Flash for the ST, and already had a communications program for the 8-bit computer, so all I needed to do was get a suitable null modem and learn how to use it. NULL MODEM? A null modem is a device (usually a cable) that allows two computers to communicate without a modem. Hence the name: Null. Modem. The cable is made so that one computer's output is the other's input and vice versa; the idea is to fool each computer into thinking it's connected by modem to another computer. One end of my null modem plugs into the "modem" port at the back of the ST. The other end plugs into the serial port on the Atari 850. Clearly, if you want to have someone make a null modem cable for you, you'll need to tell your benefactor exactly what computers (and interface units) you have. It's not a bad idea to have the technical manuals available, too. If you're technically inclined, you can make one of these things yourself, or have a repair shop make one for you. The accompanying table shows what I fondly believe are the right pin connections for making a null modem to connect an ST to an Atari 8-bit computer using an 850 interface. (Thanks to John at L&Y for checking this for me. Hope I didn't mess up copying the notes). If you make one yourself, you'll need a female 25-pin connector for the ST end, a male 9-pin connector for the 850 end, and a length of cable containing at least five wires. Null Modem Pin Connections Atari ST to 850 ST (25-pin 850 (9-pin Connector) Connector) 2 4 3 3 4 8 7 5 8 7 SETUP PROCEDURE. With everything powered off, place the two machines close enough together that the cable will reach, and hook up the null modem. Next, boot both machines (order doesn't matter) and load both telecommunications programs. Loading the software is no different from getting ready to dial up your favorite BBS. Both communications programs loaded? Ok, now make sure that both programs initially are set up the same way--as though you were about to dial an ASCII BBS, such as ARMUDIC. You should designate one machine to be the "host" for this operation, and the other the "remote" terminal. In the host, alter the software settings as follows. Set half duplex on, set echo on, and set linefeed on. For Flash, the commands are "EC ON," "DU HA," and "LF ON." Make sure that the baud rates are set the same on both machines. You can probably use the fastest baud rate that both terminal programs can handle. Make sure the Xmodem file transfer parameters are compatible--if your 8-bit terminal program supports 1K Xmodem blocks, set both systems to use it, otherwise set both to 128-byte blocks. Likewise, set both terminal programs for CRC Xmodem or checksum, as appropriate. The figure on the next page shows Flash status when the ST is set up to act as the host. Now force a "connection." For Flash, this simply means clicking on the right mouse button to get to the terminal screen (the one that does NOT have a GEM menu bar at the top). At the 8-bit side, it depends on which program you're running; usually the command is something like "terminal mode." At this point, you should be able to type a message on either keyboard and see exactly the same thing on both screens. This is mildly amusing, but kind of like talking to yourself, so let's try a file transfer. Pick a small file at first, just to make sure everything is working right. DOING FILE TRANSFERS. The terms "upload" and "download" can get a bit confusing here; just remember that whichever computer is to transmit the file (the sender) will be told to upload, and the receiving machine will be told to download. At the receiving machine, enter an Xmodem download command. At the sending machine, enter an upload command. For Flash, these commands are DL XM filespec and UL XM filespec, where filespec is a complete path name for the file. As soon as you complete the upload command, the file transfer should begin, and it should go like a scalded bat! With no modems or phone lines in the way, you'll see file transfers run faster than anything you've ever done online. ATASCII TO ASCII. Some of the files I wanted to transfer were produced by a word processor on the 8-bit machine. I saved the word processor files as plain ATASCII text files, and transferred the files to the ST using Xmodem. Finally, I converted the files from ATASCII to ASCII using CONVRT2.PRG on the ST. That was the most straightforward method for me; I found the Xmodem transfers and a separate conversion step to be less hassle. Alternatively, you could try to get Flash to do the conversion for you on a text file transfer into the capture buffer. I never got this method to work right, but I didn't try very hard either. If you're interested, you might want to experiment with it (let me know if you get it to work). The basic idea is to tell the 8-bit machine that it's running in ATASCII mode, and tell Flash that you're talking to an ATASCII machine. That last involves loading the ATASCII translation table that comes with Flash, and turning on Flash's translate option. You'd then use a text upload command at the sender, and the receiver would have to "capture" the text. PICTURE FILES. I also had a library of CompuServe RLE format pictures, and some Koala/Microillustrator pictures that I wasn't quite ready to discard. Just transferred both sorts with Xmodem, and converted to Degas format with the PICSW7 utility. Simple! GIF pictures are already machine-independent, so no conversion was necessary for those. ARC FILES. The 8-bit version of the ARC program is compatible with the ST version. You should have no problems here, but don't trust me --check it out. If you're transferring files from an ST to an 8-bit Atari, just make sure you don't use the "squash" algorithm; it's fairly new, and I doubt that the 8-bit program can handle it. A BIT LESS LOCAL. Calling a friend who DOESN'T operate a BBS is really no more complicated than using a null modem in your bedroom. Both of you need a modem, of course, and you need to agree on the protocol settings you're going to use (the parity, 8-bit word, and stop bit stuff in the figure). You'll also need to agree on the baud rate in advance; use the fastest rate that both modems support. Find out what Xmodem parameters you have in common (1K/128 byte block, CRC/checksum). Again, one of you must agree to act as the "host." If your modems support a command that allows you to turn the modem carrier on manually, you can make a voice telephone call, set up your system options, turn on the carrier, and hang up the handset. My modem doesn't seem to do that, so I have to use the alternative. After both systems are ready to go, both parties hang up. The "host" needs to have a modem that will answer the phone automatically. The other party dials the call by modem, just like dialing a BBS. The "host" computer's modem answers, and you're in business. Once the connection is established, you can type messages to each other and perform file transfers. As with a null modem, the receiver gives his/her system the download command, and the sender gives his/her system an upload command to initiate the process. Most telecommunications programs don't have BBS functions, so both users must give these commands manually. PEBBLES FROM THE BIT STREAM. I had occasion to call Word Perfect's technical support line today, and was informed that WP Corp. has begun work on a driver for Ultrascript. From WP through Ultrascript to the printer in one swell foop with real proportional spacing. Hmmm, what was that price tag again? ********************** * JULY/AUGUST 1989 * ********************** COMPUTER SHOPPING, PART 1 Shopping for a home computer can be a more daunting task than shopping for a new car. Most of us know the basic things we need in a vehicle, whether we really understand what's under the hood or not. We even know a lot of the jargon, but the first-time computer shopper is often left stranded in an alien world, where he or she doesn't even speak the language. The confusing welter of products and options available can boggle the mind of a specialist, let alone a computer novice. WHO NEEDS ONE? Let's clear away some mental rubbish first. Who really needs a home computer? My response may be a bit radical: not very many people. A typewriter or pen and paper will suffice for the occasional letter to Aunt Agatha, and one can always find a typewriter for an irate letter to the Congresscritter. A pencil and pocket calculator are quite satisfactory for balancing the family checkbook. Doing your taxes with computer assistance seems attractive, but you'll have to use the computer to keep all that data up to date during the year, and the rules change every year as well. Home financial tasks can be more--not less--work with a computer. This doesn't mean that a home computer can't be a labor-saving device and a great convenience. There are probably very few professional writers these days who don't use some sort of word processor, for instance. SOME BASIC CONCEPTS. In the abstract, the computer is just another tool, like a screwdriver. It consists of two major parts: hardware and software. Hardware refers to the computing electronics, including the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and other devices it controls. Software, or computer programs, are sets of instructions telling the CPU what to do. The CPU can manipulate numbers: add, compare, and the like. That's the main thing it does. And it manipulates numbers very quickly indeed. Consider the following facts. A CPU manipulates numbers. A computer program is a set of instructions telling the CPU what to do. A computer program is a set of numbers. A CPU can make "decisions" by comparing numbers. Both a program and its data can be stored electronically and on something relatively permanent. All this adds up (hehe!) to a tool that can change its shape to fit very different tasks. Sorta like a single tool that can be anything from a screwdriver to a chain saw to a socket wrench, or anything else that it's been programmed to be. More exactly, a computer can be built or programmed to do any task that a clever human can describe in terms of precise manipulation of numbers. For some tasks, engineers have found it makes sense to build both the hardware and software to do only one job; the program can't be changed, and the hardware is built for that one task. This is the case with the computer in your new car. Another approach, and the one that concerns us here, is a computer system consisting of "generic" hardware, designed with the idea of using many different programs for many different tasks--the general purpose computer. A TOOL FOR THE MIND. Unlike a screwdriver, the computer is a tool to assist the mind rather than the hands. The tasks we program it for are cerebral, but most often the dull and routine chores that have to be done over and over again. The computer is ideal for assisting us with such work. It's the general purpose computer that we normally think of when we talk about the computer. In its home incarnation, the hardware usually consists of a display monitor, a keyboard, a printer, one or more disk drives, and the computer itself. Often some of these components are combined, as with the Atari 1040 ST; where the keyboard, disk drive, and computer circuitry are made as a single unit. The disk drive is used to "load" programs and data, turning the computer into a specific tool for a specific task. Programs that do useful work are often called applications software, and may be sold with the hardware as a package deal, or purchased separately. THE OPERATING SYSTEM. A computer sitting quietly on your desk still has much in common with a paperweight. There's a special sort of software needed to make it even marginally useful: the operating system (OS)--a program that manages the hardware resources (memory, disk drives, printers, etc.). It's the operating system that really makes it practical to produce applications software with any real hope that it'll be widely usable. Some systems, such as IBM compatibles, expect to load their OS (called MS-DOS) from disk. Others, such as the Atari ST, have the operating system built in. KNOW YOUR REQUIREMENTS. I've had the word requirements drummed into my balding head for years. Know your requirements. Then, and only then, can a rational choice be made. Think hard and cold-bloodedly about what you want to use your home computer for. Concentrate first on the needs you have right now, not those that may lie in the dim and uncertain future. Next think about where your interests seem likely to take you over the next three years or so. This is a fuzzy area, subject to lots of changes, but a list of blue sky items is useful to establish the capacity for growth your hardware will need to support. Without giving some thought to growth potential, you might find yourself locked into an initial system that's too limited, forcing a too-early replacement. Make lists of everything, and organize them into "want now" and "maybe later" categories. Shuffle things around until you have a reasonable priority ranking. Now you have some sort of basis for judging the systems you look at. COMPATIBILITY? "IBM compatible" is a requirement that frequently appears at the top of the list. I think this often happens for the wrong reasons. The marketplace in IBM compatible computers is more confusing than most people can imagine. You're in for a really frustrating experience if this is the direction you want to go, partly because nearly every feature of that system is optional (bring money). Think hard on this: if you think you need IBM compatibility, exactly why do you need it, and how much will you use it? If you use an IBM compatible at the office, and your main reason for getting a home computer is to exactly duplicate the system you're familiar with, okay. If you want to run one or two software applications that are only available for IBMs and compatibles, there are other ways to solve the problem. There may well be equally good (or even better) solutions available on the non-compatible machines. The fact is that MS-DOS is not an operating system that the first-time user will find easy to learn. It is a command-oriented system, meaning that you will have to learn its language and rather more of computer operations to use it at all. Now it is possible to rig an MS-DOS system so that a simple menu appears when the system is first started. It's not a job for the neophyte, though; you'll need help from a sophisticated user. And you'll still have to learn some non-trivial new skills in order to manage an MS-DOS system well. By contrast, the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and Apple Macintosh use a "desktop" environment that you may find easier to learn. Of the three, the ST system has the shortest "learning curve" of any computer I've ever seen. There's one other facet of the compatibility issue that some people (like a couple of my friends) are very concerned about. There's every reason to believe that IBM compatibles (and IBM) will be around for years to come, and there's an immense load of IBM-compatible software around. So software availability and a general confidence in continued support argue for the IBM clones versus the others. This issue is much more in doubt for the likes of Atari and Commodore, depending on what analysts you read. NO GUARANTEES. There are no guarantees in the computer business; companies that make too many wrong decisions, or lose their competitive edge, WILL disappear. At the same time, there are good reasons for looking seriously at the non-IBM alternatives. What to do? History suggests that Atari's future may be more in jeopardy than the others, but that may not be entirely true, and may not matter all that much. Here's my reasoning, for what it's worth. First, Atari seems at least to be holding its own at this time, and Atari management has made promises that may lead to better corporate performance this year. (Yeah, I know, the year's half over)! Second, eventually you will replace your computer, no matter what you choose--expected lifetime is probably three to five years. Your needs evolve, and technology marches on. There's no guarantee that any software you buy now will run on your next machine. Third, even Apple may experience increased competition--maybe even from clones. That could complicate matters dramatically. EMULATION. Finally, there's another way to solve the compatibility problem without buying an MS-DOS machine. It's called emulation--basically a product which allows one computer to pretend it's another. IBM emulators exist for both the Atari ST and the Amiga, and there are Mac emulators for the ST. The negative aspect of emulation is that you have to learn two operating systems: the host's "native" system and that of the machine being emulated. The positive aspect is that emulation opens up truly enormous software libraries, and can dramatically enhance your computer's lifespan. CONCLUSIONS. There aren't any cut-and-dried formulas. Become as well-informed as you can, don't rule out the non-IBM possibilities, and above all, KNOW YOUR REQUIREMENTS. ******************** * SEPTEMBER 1989 * ******************** SHOPPING II: WORTH A LOOK Suppose you're looking for a first computer, some enlightened soul has suggested a look at the Atari ST line, and you haven't fallen into the IBM compatibility trap. What's to look at? Quite a lot, actually. (After all, this is an Atari-oriented publication, isn't it)? THE COMPUTERS: 1040 ST. A megabyte (1024K) of memory, sound (three voices), keyboard, and floppy disk drive made as a single unit. Comes with a mouse, which is required. The mouse is a little box with two switches on top, a cable connecting it to the computer, and a little ball in its bottom that rotates as you move it. The computer follows the mouse's motion with a pointer on the screen. The floppy disk drive is a 3.5" unit, using small disks with hard plastic cases. Although the 520ST (half the memory) is still available, I'd recommend at least a 1040ST for most applications--the extra memory has enough flexibility to run a serious application with enough room left over for several handy desk accessories. MEGA2 AND MEGA4. (At this writing) the flagships of the ST line. Made in a different configuration: keyboard connected to a separate box which contains the computer and a floppy disk drive. Only real difference between them is memory and cost, with 2 megabytes of RAM in the Mega 2, 4 in the Mega 4. The Megas are equipped with a device called a blitter, which makes the display work a bit smoother and faster. MONITORS. Two standard monitors for all ST models: the monochrome monitor delivers a high resolution black on white display with shades of gray. The color monitor provides two sorts of color display. Color is nearly essential for games, art, and the like. Monochrome is better for some business applications. PRINTERS. Nearly any printer will work with any of the STs. Decision factors are print quality and cost. Least expensive are the 9-pin dot matrix printers (Near Letter Quality). Next are the 24-pin dot matrix printers (Letter Quality). At the top of the heap are laser printers (Near Typeset Quality), capable of terrific quality print, and sporting hefty price tags. Dot matrix printers all work pretty much the same way: the mechanism slaps an inked ribbon with a set of thin wires arranged in a vertical row, "painting" the letters with tiny dots as the print head moves horizontally. 24-pin printers achieve better print quality with more and smaller wires. The laser printers don't use a ribbon, but make dots too (about 300 per inch). An unusual variant is the ink jet printer, which sprays tiny ink dots directly on the paper. These can achieve quality rivaling most laser printers, at lower cost and somewhat less speed. DISK DRIVES. A second floppy drive allows the computer to reach both programs and data simultaneously. A hard disk drive does something similar, but more so, making lots of programs and data available instantly. Down side of the hard drive is cost. Figure on several hundred dollars at least. THE SOFTWARE. Here's where the fun really starts. One needs to decide what sort of software one wants, then which software, which brings us hot and heavy into the requirements business again. Let's take a quick survey of some common applications and the sort of hardware they need. GAMES. Games are certainly a legitimate use for a home machine, even if the boss won't go for the idea at work... Most games require one floppy drive, some will work a little better with two. The vast majority of games work best (or only) in color, so if you're interested in games, you should plan on a color monitor. Most games will play on anything from a 520ST to a Mega 4. WORD PROCESSING. The most popular application for any home computer. In a nutshell, word processing software turns your computer into a super typewriter with a permanent memory, a pair of scissors, and a glue pot. Your documents can be saved on disk so you can print an original at any time; and you can edit, rewrite, and cut and paste to your heart's content. There are several good word processors available for the ST, ranging in price from free to a couple hundred dollars. If you're new to word processing, shop around, perhaps try a few to determine which one is likely to be the most comfortable for you. Don't trust your friends' recommendations too much; personal tastes can be pretty idiosyncratic. The 520ST should handle most word processors, and the 1040ST can run any of them easily. You'll find two floppy drives to be a near necessity. If you plan to do much word processing, or want one of the more powerful products, a hard disk drive may be worth the investment. DESKTOP PUBLISHING. A relatively new sort of application finally within reach of home users, desktop publishing software allows you to mingle text and graphics on the printed page in rather fancy and professional ways. This publication is an example of what can be done. I know of four desktop publishing products for the ST, covering an impressive range of price and capability. If you're considering desktop publishing, go for a Mega 2 or 4; all desktop publishing programs are memory hogs. They can use all the memory they get their little electronic fingers on and ask for more. A good 24-pin printer is the minimum, but these programs can really show off with a laser or ink jet printer! A monochrome monitor will allow you to see more of your page without "scrolling," although the color monitor is a viable compromise with all but one (Calamus). Don't even think of getting into desktop publishing without a hard drive. SPREADSHEETS. Spreadsheet programs have sold a lot of computers. A "spreadsheet" is simply a rectangular array of text and numbers, i.e., data arranged in rows and columns. Spreadsheet programs allow you to build such things and manipulate them automatically. Their uses are limited only by the capacity of your computer, and your creativity. There are a few freeware and shareware programs available, and a couple of professional products capable of using Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. Spreadsheets can eat up memory quickly; the 1040ST is probably the minimum for anything really serious, and a second floppy drive or hard drive is advisable. You can get by with a color monitor. DATABASE PROGRAMS. A database is more than just a file containing information; it's a structured collection of related information, which is used with a Database Management System (DBMS). A good DBMS can sort, search, select, and report on the data in highly sophisticated ways. The Dbase line of products has dominated the IBM PC world for years. At least one Dbase "work-alike" is available for the ST computers, and there are several alternate choices, including freeware. Again, a second floppy drive or hard drive is indicated. For display requirements, you'll have to check. TELECOMMUNICATIONS. Add a modem and telecommunications software and you're ready to have your computer dial up an electronic bulletin board system (BBS) or use it as a remote work station for a mainframe computer. A modem is an piece of hardware that connects the ST to your telephone line. Several good telecommunications programs around, from freeware to moderate price (well under $100). Minimum hardware requirements: a 520ST. MUSIC. The ST line is an industry leader in this area, with built-in MIDI connections that allow the machine to connect to and control multiple electronic music devices. You'll need additional hardware (the instruments) and a software package to control them. You'll also want a hard drive to store your music. Check the software you're considering to see if there's a monitor preference. CAD. Computer Aided Design (CAD) is often called by other names, but all refer to sophisticated software for precision drawing in two or three dimensions. The best products are pretty expensive, but are said to be the equal of the more popular PC products. You'll most likely need a monochrome monitor, lots of memory, and a hard drive. GRAPHIC ARTS. Sort of a mixed bag here, including both art programs and animation tools. While the ST's graphics capability is not at the leading edge of technology, it can yield some pretty impressive results. For animation work, you'll need a hard drive, and probably a Mega 2 or 4; animation is another memory eater. Naturally a color monitor is preferred. EMULATION. An emulator allows one computer to pretend it's another. By the time you read this, the latest Macintosh and IBM PC emulators may be on the dealers' shelves. If rumor is any indication, both should be excellent--opening up huge software libraries to your ST. The Mac emulator needs a monochrome monitor. OTHER STUFF. We haven't discussed the growing collection of third-party equipment for the ST series, including accelerator boards, sound extras, multi-sync monitors for both color and monochrome, a large high-res monochrome monitor, and more. We also haven't mentioned specialized applications software, like inventory, financial, tax preparation, and such. One more thing: the Atari ST computers are the easiest to learn to use that I've ever seen. Sooo, if you're shopping for your first computer, take a close look. You may be in for a pleasant surprise. ****************** * OCTOBER 1989 * ****************** MICHTRON'S TURBO KIT Michtron has integrated and repackaged three of their products as the Hard Drive Turbo Kit. This product consists of M-Cache (a cache program) and Toolkit, which is a combination of Tuneup! (a defragger) and Backup! (a backup/restore utility). While this wasn't intended to be a software review column, we have discussed hard drives and their management quite a bit in recent months. So it's appropriate to examine the new offering from Michtron. Let's start by reminding ourselves what the above functions are. Hard drive cache programs attempt to improve hard drive performance by saving copies of data sectors in memory. If an application references the same data multiple times, retrieval is accomplished by reading the copy in memory, rather than the disk. The program must decide which data to save in memory, and which to purge first when the buffers fill up. Most also use a "write-through" technique where data written to the hard drive are written immediately, as well as being saved in memory. This is done to prevent loss of data should the system crash. Defraggers are used to reorganize a hard drive by bringing scattered pieces of files together and gathering up all the free space into a contiguous block. A pretty vital function after you've been operating for a while. Backup programs are used to make a backup copy of hard drive contents for the obvious reasons. See this column in CN March and April '89 issues for more detail. M-Cache has a companion program which is used to set up its options. MCCONFIG.TOS allows you to specify which hard drive partitions are to be cached, then asks how much space to allocate for each data buffer--specified in sectors. Michtron suggests 200 sectors. These specifications are saved in the M-Cache program file (there's no separate setup file). Copy the revised M-CACHE.PRG file to your AUTO folder. It will run automatically at system boot time. To get rid of it, you must reboot. Nothing further is required to use it. Just boot your system and go about your business. Your applications programs will run normally, except that you should see some improvements when the application is going after the same data more than once, and your hard drive's busy light won't come on quite as often. I've noticed the effect most when I'm using Antic's Phasar, since I search the transaction register a lot. After the first search, everything happens in memory, making the whole operation a bit smoother and more responsive. M-Cache seems to work as advertised, delivers a perceptible improvement in overall performance and stays out of the way. What more could one ask? TOOLKIT. The rest of the package is a program named TOOLKIT.PRG. It is a GEM application, with the familiar menu bar, a log window that records what happens during a session, and several icons at the top of the screen. These include the drives the ST knows about, and an odd-looking icon named "Path." (More about that one later). A single click on a hard drive icon selects it, and most program options are grayed out (inactive) until a drive is selected. Tuneup Options are found in the Tuneup dropdown menu. Its features are pretty much the same as Tuneup Version 1.25, which I've been using for several months. There is a new option, "Describe disk," which yields some statistics about the partition currently selected, including sector and cluster size, etc. The program has two optimize options, one for reading and the other for writing. The former puts all the free space at the back end of the partition, while the latter arranges it at the beginning. The idea is that if a partition is used mostly for reading, with few new files created on it, performance enhancement should be greatest with the files stored at lower addresses. Conversely, if you're creating or updating a lot, free space should be near the front of the partition. This will make the ST's rather slow FAT search go faster. Double clicking on a drive icon produces a graphic image of disk utilization, which shows free space in white and portions in use in black. I've grown fond of this feature of Tuneup, since it provides an immediate indication of how broken up the free space on the drive has become. The display has a little bug in the Toolkit version. Doing most anything will cause black marks to appear in the lower right corner, appearing to indicate sectors in use but somehow orphaned. They aren't real--exit the program and re-enter--poof, they're gone. Otherwise, the Tuneup portion of Toolkit works like the stand-alone version. I'm not happy about the bug; it suggests sloppy testing, which makes me uncomfortable. BACKUP AND RESTORE. Toolkit supports all of the backup methods mentioned in the March column. You can do two types of file-oriented backups: in DOS(i.e., TOS) format and in TAR format. Think of TAR as a proprietary format--you can't do anything with it from the desktop. The third type of backup is a compressed image of the whole partition--a sort of sector dump--but the program is smart enough not to write a lot of empty sectors to the floppy. The two file-oriented methods support full backup (everything), and either of two methods of incremental backup. The "incremental" backup option uses the directory archive bit to determine whether a file has been altered and needs to be backed up again; "backup by date" uses the date. The latter checks a history file for the latest backup date. Both file-oriented methods make a history file on the partition being backed up, and update this file on incremental backups. The history file is destroyed and recreated on the next full backup. The "path" icon allows you to specify a folder to be copied or backed up with TAR or TOS options. The copy option on the "File" dropdown menu lets you copy the folder from one partition to another. Oddly, I had trouble getting the copy function to work properly with the Atari file selector, but had no trouble when using the Universal Item Selector. The restore menu is the simplest of the lot; select the format of your backup disks (TOS, TAR, or IMAGE), and off it goes. There's no provision for a partial restore. BELLS AND WHISTLES. Toolkit has lots of bells and whistles: display drive free space, list/print the directory, print the activity log, display a text file, display/print the backup history, and more. You can have the Toolkit verify writes, have TOS do it, or neither. Having Toolkit do the verify slows things down considerably, but it does give one a more comfortable feeling about the disks' readability. Toolkit will format floppies for you, and supports several different floppy disk formats. Its floppy disk formatter is nearly the slowest I've seen, and by far the most finicky; if it finds anything wrong, it yells at you. I almost flipped out when my floppy drive starting going bad on me; Toolkit was first to detect the developing problem by screaming that nearly all my floppy disks were bad. To make matters worse, I'd just started using a new batch of generic floppies. For a while there, I didn't know what to blame; turned out to be my hardware. The Toolkit formatter is still picky, though; occasionally it rejects a floppy that other programs seem happy with. For that reason, I'd recommend using Toolkit to preformat all floppies that you plan to use with it. Backup speed is respectable, at least for TAR and image dumps. For the accompanying table, I chose a small partition and ran backups with several combinations of options. Turtle's times are supplied for comparison. Toolkit did well in most cases. I don't know why the TOS format times were so high, but I ran it twice with essentially the same results. Backup Speed Comparison Verify On Off TOS format 11:36 13:00 TAR format 7:12 4:14 Image dump 7:20 4:20 Turtle 7:30 4:26 (Times in minutes and seconds) PLUSES AND MINUSES. I liked a number of things about the Turbo Kit. M-Cache is worth having, and Tuneup is a good defragger. It's also convenient to have both defragging and backup in the same program; my usual pattern is to back up the drive, then reorganize it. Toolkit lets you change format option at each disk swap, which is nice, especially if you don't have a stack of preformatted floppies lying around and need to format another. It supports all the backup methods one is likely to want, and will split large files that won't fit on one floppy. Bulk copying with the "path" option is very fast--much faster than copying files. However, you'll have to reboot after using it. I didn't like a few things about this product. Regrettably, some of the deficiencies were in areas I consider important. TAR and image dump recovery (restoring files from floppy to the hard drive) is an all or nothing proposition. You can't restore individual files or folders. In the case of the image dump, that's understandable, but not for the TAR format. You can restore individual files from the TOS format backups by mouse dragging, but not those large, split files. Split files can only be restored by Toolkit, which provides nothing but a full recovery. TAR format disks can't be processed at all from the desktop. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the Toolkit won't list file names or even read the disk label (which it wrote in the first place)! Unfortunately, backups are faster with it than with TOS format. Better use hand printed labels to keep disks in order, too; it's not a good idea to restore disks out of sequence, and there's no way to check them with the program. There's insufficient error recovery. If a disk error occurs in the middle of a floppy, the entire backup operation will abort. There's no way to restart at that point with a fresh disk. Previously written floppies may be fine, but there's no way topick up in the middle of a full backup. I deliberately popped a floppy out of the drive while making an image dump, and reinserted it before an error alert could appear. No error was reported on the dump operation, nor on the restore, but files were damaged. This is ungood. The Documentation is disappointing. Sections on M-Cache and Tuneup are ok, but these didn't need much documentation anyway. Matter of fact, the Tuneup section is somewhat better than my original Tuneup manual. Toolkit's documentation leaves much to be desired. Program options are not adequately explained, cryptic error codes that appear in the message log are not defined, and the manual is riddled with typographical errors that should have been caught by proofreading. The manual refers to a Help menu. There ain't no such thing, but the HELP key displays a dialogue box that wasn't worth including. CONCLUSIONS. The Toolkit portion of Turbo Kit strikes me as unfinished. It still could be an excellent program if some improvements were made, however. TAR format should be more fully supported. Error detection and recovery should be improved. Partial restores should be supported for both TAR and TOS formats. The manual should be rewritten and expanded to include missing information. Recommendations? Well, I'm using M-Cache and Tuneup (the stand-alone version). For backups and restores, I'm afraid I'll have to stick with Turtle, at least for now. ******************* * NOVEMBER 1989 * ******************* CODEHEAD UTILITIES DISK Here we go again, another software review! I promise I won't do this next month, OK? However, I'm a sucker for utilities, and when Our Editor asked me to examine the CodeHead Utilities package, I couldn't refuse. Glad I didn't. CodeHead is a fairly new company, but they're establishing a reputation for innovative and reliable products. The blurb on the back of the manual calls this "a collection of useful programs and accessories." A true statement. Speaking of the manual, it's well done, which is almost a surprise these days. Use of the programs is well covered, and everything is easy to find. Good job there. The disk contains ten commercial programs, two shareware, and two freeware. I shan't discuss the shareware and freeware. Since they are available from other sources, they wouldn't be a reason to buy the disk. By the way, I was told (not by CodeHead) that earlier versions of some of these utilities had been released previously, as freeware, etc. The manual confirms that, but asserts the commercial versions are more elaborate. ART GALLERY 2.0. This program can be run as a desk accessory or as a program by changing the file extension to ".ACC" or ".PRG". Basically, it's a picture display/slide show program accepting Degas, Neochrome, Tiny, Spectrum, and Art Director formats. Degas users may be interested because it can be used to import non-Degas formats (except Spectrum) into Degas Elite. In addition, the import mode is said to be as much as eight times faster than Degas Elite when loading Degas format. Not being a Degas user, I didn't test the import mode. As a slide show/display program, Art Gallery is adequate, but limited. It supports all the stated formats, but not if they are intermixed. One picture format at a time, please. It won't display high-res pictures on a color monitor. Nor does it have a script facility. It's kind of interesting to run a slide show with an accessory though. AUTO ORGANIZER. Auto_org is a neat little utility that can change the run order of programs in your AUTO folder. It saves you the trouble of laboriously copying programs one by one every time you add something to the autorun list. It won't mess with non-program files, but that's fine; they don't affect the run order anyway. The user interface is clean and clever; it splits the screen into two sections, showing the files in their current order, with the active programs in inverse video. Click on one, and it disappears from the top section of the screen, reappearing in the lower section. Repeat until finished. You also get a second chance prompt allowing you to bail out. This one goes into my personal toolbox. CAPSlOCK. A mildly annoying thing about the ST is that it has no positive indication of whether the Caps Lock key is engaged. (This is the key that switches all letters to upper case). On many other systems, there's some sort of indicator, such as a keyboard LED. CAPSLOCK is an accessory that puts a little arrow in the upper right corner of the screen as a substitute for the missing indicator. The arrow can be turned off (disengaged) or moved to the left side of the screen by running the capslock accessory from the GEM menu bar. I'd like to see a configuration save feature, so I could boot with the indicator initially on the left (or disengaged). CODECOPY. This is one of those dangerous utilities. There are no "do you really want to do this" alerts. Hit a key, and bam! It's off to the races. You can wipe out a floppy disk faster than a breeding rabbit with this thing. I love it! When I make a duplicate of a floppy disk, I want it to be an exact duplicate, with no mistakes. I'm picky that way. CodeCopy reads an entire (unprotected) floppy disk into memory, remembering the format as well as the data, and computes a checksum of the data. It can then format, write, and verify as many copies as you need without rereading the original. The verify step reads the copy back, recomputes the checksum, AND compares the data. The buffer constructed from the original disk can also be stored as a file, permitting you to make more copies later. Not real speedy, but comfortably certain. The saved file format can only be processed by CodeCopy. Thus, you can get at the data only from the original floppy, or a dupe of it. This is not a vehicle for archival storage. CodeCopy's really designed for someone like the CodeHead people themselves, to mass-produce distribution disks. It also has possibilities for club librarians, and paranoids like me... A new feature has been added to CodeCopy in Version 1.1. You can read the contents of the CodeHead ramdisk, save in CodeCopy format, then use the saved file to initialize the ramdisk on the next boot, with a program like CodeHead's Hotwire. Nifty. CODEHEAD RAMDISK. What? Another ramdisk program? Yep. This one is a reset-proof ramdisk; CODE-RAM goes into the AUTO folder, and is supposed to withstand anything short of a cold boot (e.g., turning the computer off). Unlike some "eternal" ramdisks, it doesn't require a second boot each time it installs itself. A catastrophic software crash can clobber it, but you can't have everything. CODE-RAM gives you an opportunity to select among several preset ramdisk sizes. It can also save the configuration so you don't have to specify the parameters every time. When run from the desktop, it lets you force a cold boot to get everything started--a nice feature. Finally, being an autorun program, it doesn't eat up a desk accessory slot. I've been using it regularly for several weeks now with no problems. Another solid program. CODEHEAD PRINT SPOOLER. I didn't test this one; I use the SLM804 laser printer with the Diablo Emulator, and print spoolers don't seem to work with that combo. FONT TRICKS 2.0. This desk accessory allows you to replace the ST's screen character set with an alternate font (several supplied). The fonts are Degas Elite fonts or ports from an eight-bit Atari. With an Epson-compatible printer, one is supposed to be able to print in these fonts (with the desktop Print function). Several of the fonts supplied will only work in monochrome, so I couldn't look at them. Others are pretty exotic-looking. I must admit that I can't get excited one way or another about a program like this; mostly because I find the standard system font to be quite readable, and that's all I care about. LENS. This is, admittedly, a toy. Load a picture and smear it up by cutting out a section; then, using the mouse to drag it around, paint over the original image. Since the contents of its "brush" are always taken from the screen, dragging over the original area causes a sort of feedback condition, or recursion effect. Amusing. ZERODISK. Another useful utility for my personal toolbox, this one lets you erase the contents of a floppy disk almost instantly. Like any format/erase operation, this is somewhat danger-prone; the manual clearly explains this, and the program gives a second chance to avoid disaster. MULTIFILE. The biggie, and probably the main reason for the disk's release. It's a feature-laden file manipulation and copy utility with a rather unique flavor. I found it took some practice to get used to, but I like it. The figure shows the main screen and the smaller window brought up by pressing the key or clicking on "MORE." The main viewing area shows files and folders in the "source" folder. Assorted function buttons are displayed at the bottom of the screen. You can work most everything with a keypress or the mouse, and set function keys for directory paths. Virtually all file operations are provided in this program; there's so much that several secondary windows are needed to get it all in. The rodent is active practically everywhere. For instance, click once on a file name to "select" it for a subsequent operation like copy. Click twice, and up comes another window. From here, you can change file attributes or display a text file. Click on a folder name in the path display (top of the main screen), and it closes, moving up a level. Click on a folder name in the source display, and it opens (automatically added to the path as well). And more, including the ability to run as either a program (from the desktop) or as an accessory. Lots of features! The CodeHead folks have mentioned an upcoming successor--a program called MaxiFile. I don't think they've left much out of the current program, although I'd like to see one addition: the ability to copy (or move or delete) an entire folder and its contents (with automatic handling of lower level folders). CodeHead's upgrade policy is very fair--return your original disk with a modest fee. They're active on CompuServe (ATARIVEN forum), and are very responsive folks, glad to hear user feedback. Refreshing. Bottom line: A well-done package, worth the investment. [CodeHead Utilities, $29.95 from CodeHead Software, PO Box 74090, Los Angeles, CA 90004. Phone: (213) 386-5735.] ******************* * DECEMBER 1989 * ******************* 'TIS THE SEASON... ... to do something about the Christmas shopping list. Hence, this column--for you folks who have computer nuts on your list. For the record, most of the the items mentioned here should be available for $30 or less. THE MUNDANE STUFF. Everybody finds some mundane, practical, "you need it" stuff under the tree: handkerchiefs, ties, socks, underwear, and such. Computer users are no exception. There are items that we "need" but only purchase for ourselves when we must. Paper for the printer, printer ribbons, floppy disks, maybe pin-feed labels (for those who use 'em). Make sure you know the brand and model of the printer so everything will work properly. You can find these "staple" items at any computer store and most office supply stores. Most home computer printers use letter-size continuous forms, that is, each sheet is connected to the next and perforated for separation. There are also perforated strips along the sides, with holes punched at regular intervals. I prefer the so-called "laser cut" paper; the perforated strips remove easily and cleanly, leaving practically no trace. Good for most purposes, including correspondence. It's critical that printer ribbons be made to fit your giftee's specific printer (brand and model). A ribbon made for an Epson is useless on a Panasonic printer. It should be safe to shop for price on both. Floppy disks come in two sizes (5.25 inches and 3.5 inches), and several density ratings. The two sizes look quite different. It's probably best to find out what brand your giftee uses and match it; some people get pretty picky about their floppies, so shopping for price may not be entirely safe. Sneak a look at a box and make a note of the brand and any other legend on it. BOOKS. Lots of room to operate here, and conventional bookstores often have sizable computer book sections. If your giftee is a heavy user of certain types of software, a text on better ways to do that sort of work may be helpful. For desktop publishers, there are some pretty good generic books on how to do better page design. Maybe a book on designing better spreadsheets or databases. A programmer might appreciate an advanced text on a favorite programming language, or a hardware or operating system reference. Unfortunately, books on specific Atari software are rare. Best bet is an Atari computer store. Books are also published on some of the more popular games, including hint books for the puzzle-oriented games like Dungeon Master and Ultima. There are even books on tactics for some of the military flight simulator games. COMMUNICATIONS. A new modem is a bit pricey to shove into a stocking, but if your giftee already has a modem, perhaps a CompuServe or Genie starter subscription might be appreciated. Watch out, though. This could lead to higher charge card bills. Those commercial timesharing networks can become addictive... DUST COVERS. Dust covers are available for most computers and peripheral devices--even mice. DISK STORAGE. Most computer users have an ever-growing collection of floppy disks. Creates a constant storage hassle. Disk storage boxes come in all shapes and sizes, and a wide range of prices. Naturally, 5.25" and 3.5" storage boxes are quite incompatible, so make sure you get the right type. Take a look around the computer area to get an idea of what might fit in. I like the wooden ones with rolltops for disks I use often--the box sits near to hand on top of the desk. For disks I don't use often, I have a different sort, stacked semi-neatly out of the way. Avoid the excessively "gimmicky" devices--especially those that don't close completely. Disks need to be protected against dust. If your giftee carries floppy disks around a lot, you might consider a disk wallet. The smaller ones fit fairly well in a jacket or coat pocket, and the larger ones fit nicely into a briefcase. CLEANING UP. Exposed equipment gets dirty no matter how hard you try, and some items are worse than others. Keeping the inside of a printer clean is probably the worst. Tiny fragments of paper and dust accumulate quickly, so a small vacuum that can reach into tight spots might be nice. Check with your giftee (or the technician at the computer store) about disk drive cleaning kits. Some people use them, others avoid the things. Mechanical mice (like the Atari rodent) also accumulate dirt inside the mechanism, so a mouse cleaning kit might be useful. HARDWARE. Major hardware items are probably not good to surprise your giftee with. Most users are kind of picky about adding major enhancements to their systems. However, there are some less expensive pieces of equipment that might be good gift choices. Like switch boxes that allow both a mouse and a joystick to be connected to an Atari ST simultaneously. Very nice for games. If there are two monitors near the computer, you might ask how your victim switches from one to the other. If this is done by moving wires around, there's a switch box that allows both monitors to be hooked up once and for all, and er, switched. Practical Solutions makes switch boxes for the Atari ST, and there are other manufacturers. Consult with your dealer to find one that will work with your giftee's system. JOYSTICKS. The serious gamester is always looking for the perfect joystick. A friend of mine swears by the old standard Atari joystick (costs $10 or less). Trouble is, they get broken. Hint, hint. Fancier joysticks can cost $20 or more. People who play flight simulators like Gunship or Falcon often prefer a joystick that sits firmly on the desk and has a pistol grip handle. A fighter pilot told me that the best place for the trigger is on the grip where the index finger can work it. Faster, he said, and I'll listen respectfully to anyone with his experience. Some people like small, sensitive, handheld joysticks. Best to investigate preferences. There's even a "joystick" that looks like an airplane's control yoke. (Sorry, I don't know how well it works, and it's outside our price range anyway). By the way, make sure you get a joystick that will work with your giftee's computer. IBM and Apple joysticks won't work with an Atari computer, and vice versa. SOFTWARE. Well, naturally software. Games, of course, and other things. Check the computer stores and their prices. Discounts vary. Be careful to avoid buying duplicates, and tailor the choice to the giftee. Don't buy me an arcade game, thanks. I'm too old and too slow. On the practical side, there are a number of inexpensive software items that are more than worth their price. Some of these programs are so good and so popular with Atari users that your giftee may already have some of them. The Universal Item Selector is a substitute for Atari's file selector. Inexpensive, and an excellent product. Tuneup! or another defragger is another possibility, if your giftee has a hard disk drive and doesn't have such a program. Almost anything by CodeHead, a small company in California, is worth considering. Their prices are reasonable, and the products work exceptionally well. For the mathematically inclined, one of our own Current Notes authors has a product called El Cal. A powerhouse. I bought my copy for a little under $40--just outside our working range, but worth it if one does a lot of numerical or statistics work at home. MISCELLANEOUS STUFF. You can also look for some inexpensive odds and ends. Like a forms ruler (any office supply store), or a disk marking pen. The latter is essentially a felt tip pen that makes a rather thick line. Handy for labelling floppy disks. A mouse pad is a rubbery mat that gives the electric rodent a comfortable place to run. You might check on whether the old one is getting, well--ratty--looking. Colored paper and ribbons might be appreciated for making fancy flyers and such. A typist's copy holder is a handy device. There are several sorts. Some attach to the computer monitor and some sit on the desk. Look at the work area around the computer. If the area is very cramped, the type that fits on the monitor might work best. Computer stores (believe it or not), and gift shops might be a good place to look for novelty items such as jewelry, coffee mugs, and the like. I saw several jewelry items at Atarifest, and a few at computer stores, made from castoff electronic parts. As a last resort, your computer store might be willing to sell you a gift certificate to stuff into that stocking. Personally, I don't like gift certificates, but if you're desperate... That's all for this time. See you next year! May this holiday season bring you joy and peace. TO USE OR NOT TO USE, THAT IS THE ? by Ron Peters [Reprinted from the May 1988 issue of Current Notes.] When computers first became available for the home market at a somewhat reasonable price, they were touted as the panacea of all home drudgery. They were going to solve all our problems. Right? WRONG! Many of us soon found that the home computer was more trouble than it was worth for some applications. It often took longer to use the computer than it would to use a pencil and paper. Let's take a look at some of these applications and see whether the use of a computer is worth the effort. Before we start, however, we should remind ourselves that the computer is a "number cruncher"--that is, a machine designed to take a large mass of data and process it in some way with a speed that cannot be matched by humans (or Mr. Spock). Balance Your Checkbook! Here's a great application for a home computer--if you write hundreds of checks per month. Anything less than that is a lesson in futility. Most of us probably write about twenty or so checks each month, and it's fairly simple to keep track of this activity in pen or pencil right on the checkbook register. Not Moe Hacker, however. He decides that he is going to use his little PC to keep track of his massive finances (20 checks) using a program called CHECKUM. So, Moe buys the program for $49.95 (on sale) and boots it up (loads it into his computer), anticipating all that time he is going to save using this new wonder. After about five hours of reading the not-too-well-written manual, Moe finally figures out how to use the program and begins entering those checks he wrote last month, one by one. He starts by referring to the checkbook register, which he has neatly kept in pen as he wrote each check, and transfers that information to the check ledger program. Each check entry requires that the date, check number, amount, payee, and memo data be typed and saved. After all checks are entered, Moe then has to decide whether he wants the checks sorted by date, number, amount, payee or memo information. Once that decision has been made, he sends this information to his printer, anxiously looks at his printer and finds "garbage" being strewn across the fanfold paper. Either the program is not compatible with his printer, or he has to define a printer driver (a program that translates printer codes sent by the program to codes that his printer can understand). This is just the beginning of a long relationship. You get the message. In the time Moe has already taken, he could have done his Income Taxes and waxed his car. Not to mention that each time Moe writes a new check he has to turn on his computer, load the CHECKUM program, and then load the checkbook data file to work on. Time effective? Not really, but if you enjoy playing with this sort of program, go right ahead. Recipe Files! Now here's a handy program for the average homemaker that uses frozen foods and a microwave! You can take those recipe cards (all 32 of them) and transfer them to a program that will retrieve a recipe by any key word. Let's say you want to bake some cookies. Simple. Go upstairs, turn on the computer, load in the FOODBASE program, load in the FOODBASE.YUK file, ask to "see" all the cookie recipes, and then review the four or five "recipe cards" that the program selects. Once you have found the right one, send it to the printer and Voila! you have a printed copy of your favorite recipe. Now you can go back downstairs (don't forget to turn off the computer and put the dust covers on the keyboard and printer), pour yourself a cup of coffee and see what ingredients you will need to make these cookies. Oops, you are out of vanilla extract. No sweat, just get another recipe. (At this point, return to the 6th sentence of this paragraph and start over). Christmas Card Lists! Wow, here's a real application for the home computer. Not only can you list the 65 names and addresses that you send Xmas cards to each year, but you can also track who returned the favor and who didn't so you can cross that name off the list. Neat! You can also sort the list by name or zip code, just in case the list might grow to the size that you can send the cards bulk rate. And, (here comes the clincher, folks) you can print the names on labels and save all that time and effort of handwriting the envelopes! Slick! Well, I won't go into the whole scenario on this one. Suffice it to say that after you have spent about ten hours learning how to use the program and typing in all the names, your spouse will inform you that labels on Xmas card envelopes are crass, and he/she is going to send the cards regardless of whether a return card is received. Besides, you will never get around to updating the list until just before Xmas next year and by then your spouse will have become disgusted with the whole process and sent out the cards without the benefit of the computer list. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the above uses are always a waste of time. Some people use their PC's for Xmas lists, recipe files, keeping track of stamp or record collections, etc., and find this use very productive. I am saying, however, that for small quantities it is quicker (and cheaper) to use a sheet of paper, a notebook or 3X5 cards. You decide. But, please, don't take my word for it. Try it yourself. (Misery loves company). * * * * * * * * * THE LOW DOWN ON MODEMS by Ron Peters [Reprinted from the November 1988 issue of Current Notes.] For some of you "politicos", a modem is a Missouri Democrat. However, for most people a modem is a device that allows one computer to talk to another (usually via a telephone line). The word "modem" is an abbreviation for "modulate-demodulate", which is nothing more than a piece of equipment that translates the electronic signal coming from your computer to one that can be transmitted over the telephone lines. At the other end, the modem translates the telephone signal to one that can be understood by the other computer. The modem is connected between the computer and the telephone line using a standard telephone cord, and has the ability to dial telephone numbers and control the functions of your computer. Thus, the modem is an interface that allows your computer to "talk" to another computer, even if the two computers are not the same make (e.g., IBM and Atari). So, big deal. What can you do with a modem? Well, just about anything, including buying a car, transferring money from your savings to checking account, order airline tickets, check the weather in Bodunk, Iowa, play a star-wars game with 10 other people at the same time, talk to a buddy, research the history of shoelaces as they relate to bathing suits, leave messages for other people using a system called electronic mail, download (copy something from another computer to yours) public domain software, send work from your office to your home, and on and on, ad nauseam. Besides the modem and the telephone line, you will need a communications program that controls the operations of the modem. This program can be purchased with (or sometimes comes with) the modem, or can be obtained through a user group like Novatari. There are several public domain (free) or "shareware" (author asks for a donation) programs available (like Amodem or Express) that do an excellent job. Like cars, modems come in all sizes and shapes. The basic modem is relatively inexpensive, but the optional extras can drive up the sticker price. The basic "subcompact" modem has less horsepower than the sportier models and thus goes a little slower. The speed of a modem, or how fast it will transmit data over a telephone line, is measured in baud, or bits per second. A 300 Baud modem (about 30 characters per second) was standard for many years, but now 1200 and even 2400 baud is common. Like horsepower, the higher the baud rate the higher the price tag. The baud rate is directly proportional to the time it takes to transmit data to another computer. Thus, if you are sending data over long-distance telephone lines, the higher speed will cut your telephone costs. However, if you use your modem to mainly access a local bulletin board, speed is not so important unless your time is a critical factor. Wait a minute, what's a local bulletin board? A bulletin board, or BBS as it's usually called, it nothing more than a computer that is connected to a modem and available by telephone. For example, Novatari has a BBS (named ARMUDIC, but that's another story) that is available for club members to use. NOVATARI's BBS has a bucket-load of public domain software available to any club member. To get these programs, a member calls the BBS, looks through a menu of software names and descriptions, and selects one or more programs to download (transfer from the Novatari host computer to yours). Using the telecommunications software connected to the modem, the program can be transferred from the Novatari computer to the member's computer via telephone line. It's really quite simple. The Novatari BBS also allows members to leave private messages for other members, leave general messages for anyone to read (for example, seeking help with a computer problem), etc. It's a lot of fun and a great way to get new games, utility programs, or other types of software right over the telephone line, for free. In the Washington area there are tons of BBS's either run by a local club or just by some "hacker" out of his home. On top of this, there are commercial BBS's, like Compuserve, the Source, or Genie, that have hundreds of options available to the user. Of course, you pay for these options, usually with a sign-up fee and so many dollars per hour of usage. Using a modem is easy to do, and if you make a mistake nothing is lost. The worst you can do is disconnect from the other computer and have to redial to make another connection. Give it a try. It's a whole new world of computing that can be dangerously habit forming. [p.s. This article was written using AtariWriter+, saved to disk, and then transmitted via modem to the editor of Current Notes. He then loaded the article into his word processor for editing and formatting using desktop publishing. Obviously a lot faster than using the mail, especially if you are late making the deadline.] * * * * * * * * * * COMPUTER LANGUAGES FOR THE ST Which One Is Right For You? by John H. Marable, III [Reprinted from the March, 1988 issue of Current Notes.] There are many programming languages available for the Atari ST series of computers. If you are a first time programmer, or if you have learned BASIC and are ready for something else, or even if you are a seasoned veteran programmer, programming language selection is a difficult, but important decision. Each language has its advantages and disadvantages. For any given programming problem, the solution difficulty depends greatly on the programming language used to implement the solution. This is not an attempt to review all of the programming languages available for the Atari ST. It is a description of the types of programming languages available, and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each. First, some definitions are required. This discussion is primarily directed at high level languages, such as Basic or Pascal as opposed to low level languages such as 68000 assembler. High level languages, in general, are easier to program and are more transportable. (A program on one machine may be compiled and executed on another with little or no modification.) Assembly languages are difficult to use and are not transportable. There are several assemblers for the Motorola 68000 processor. Most use the standard Motorola assembly language pneumonics. No assembler for the Motorola 68000 family could use assembly code for any other processor. Assembly language results in the smallest executable program possible and the fastest. There are three basic ways that a high level language may be implemented. It may be compiled into "native code", pseudo-compiled or interpreted. These are features of the implementation and not the language itself. In fact, some languages are available in more than one form. BASIC is available as both an interpreted language (ATARI BASIC) and a compiled language (LDW BASIC). GFA BASIC is available in both interpreted and compiled versions. Interpreted languages are the most common and the most familiar. With an interpreted language, first the programming language must be loaded and then the source code program (the program as typed into the computer by the programmer) is loaded and run. As the program runs, each line of the source code is examined by the interpreter, interpreted into the appropriate machine language instructions, and executed. If a line is executed more than once, it must be interpreted again each time. The computer, in most cases, spends more time interpreting statements than it does executing them. Even a remark statement must be interpreted by the computer to determine that it is a remark requiring no further processing. If an error occurs during execution of the program, in most cases, the interpretation stops, an error message code is displayed, and the source code is displayed with the line in which the error occurred indicated. Most interpreted languages have an integral text editor for entering, displaying and correcting the program source code. Pseudo compilers generate a pseudo code which executes machine language procedures contained in a runtime library. This runtime library is loaded with the pseudo code. Sometimes the runtime library is a separate file that must be loaded by the source code at run time. This keeps source file size down, but the run time library must be on every disk that contains source files. This results in relatively fast code compared to the interpreter, but even a very small program might be very large after compilation due to the overhead of the runtime library. Some pseudo compilers will incrementally compile code from a source file to provide some of the advantages of an interpreter. A pseudo compiler is easier to write than a native code compiler. Once it is written, it can be easily ported to another completely different machine. This has resulted in the popularity of the UCSD Pascal P System. Versions of this are available for the Atari ST series. Native language compilers result in the fastest, and smallest executable code possible for a high-level language. From the source code, directly executable machine language code is generated. Usually, this code is linked with machine language procedures from a library. This library might be similar to the runtime library of the pseudo compilers, however, only the procedures that are needed are linked into the source code. This allows the use of larger libraries and results in smaller code. The procedures are generally placed in line with the native code rather than being called as a subroutine, resulting in faster program execution. In general, interpreters produce programs that are easy to write and debug, but are slow in execution, and require that the interpreter be loaded to execute the program. Compilers provide fast code, but writing and debugging the code is time consuming and tedious. Source code is written using a text editor, then compiled with the compiler (requiring as many as four passes through the source code). If the compiler runs with no errors detected, then the program must be linked to create an executable file (another one or two passes). If errors are detected in the compile or link phase, then the editor is reloaded and the source code is corrected and the process is continued until no more fatal errors are detected. Then the program can be run, but wait. Now, the run time errors must be debugged. With an interpreter, run time errors usually stop program execution and return to the program editor where the error is indicated. The programmer can examine the status of variables, correct the error and then run the program again until all of the run time errors are corrected. With a compiler. a run time error is more difficult to locate. OFten run time errors in compiled programs will simply cause the system to display bombs and crash, leaving the programmer no indication of where the error occurred and little indication of what the error was. Utility programs such as a symbolic debugger can assist the programmer, or he can program in debugging code to trace the execution of the program to locate the source of the crash, but the process is slow and difficult. The ideal programming environment might be a combination of several things. First, a syntax checking text editor is a real time saver. Syntactical errors, such as unmatched quotation marks are detected by the text editor where they can be corrected as they occur. An interpreter is then used to detect and correct syntax errors that can't be detected by the text editor, such as a begin without an end or a gosub without a return. The interpreter is also used to debug any run time errors. When the program is completely debugged, a compiler which is completely compatible with the interpreter is used to compile the source code. A high level language can be classified in one of several categories. A discussion of each of the four major categories follows. Unstructured languages (Basic, Fortran, Cobol, etc) were the first computer languages. They remain the most popular today. Structured languages (Pascal, C, Modula-2, Ada, etc.) are the languages used by most professional programmers developing new application software such as word processors, spreadsheets and databases. Threaded interpretive languages (Forth, etc.) are relatively difficult to use, but are particularly useful for real-time applications such as robotics. Forth programmers are a small, but loyal group. Symbolic languages (Lisp, Logo, etc.) are the languages of artificial intelligence applications such as expert systems, although declarative languages (Prolog, etc.) are gaining popularity in this area. Unstructured languages were the first languages to become popular on mainframe computers in the 1960's. Unstructured languages are usually characterized by numbered lines, although modern implementations are getting away from that. Basic, though largely spurned by professional programmers, is still the most popular programming language. This is due primarily to the availability of basic interpreters for virtually every computer made. Fortran (FORmula TRANslation) has been popular with scientists and engineers. Its continued popularity is due to the availability of "number crunching" routines written over the years and ported from machine to machine. There are several Fortran compilers available for the ST including AC Fortran, Prospero Pro Fortran and Philon Fortran. Basic (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was first written at Dartmouth University in the 60's by Kemeny and Kurtz to be an easy to use, first language for students. It was the first high-level language to be implemented on micro computers by Bill Gates of Microsoft fame. Since then, basic interpreters have been packaged with most microcomputers at purchase. Some computers have basic interpreters installed in ROM inside the machine (the Atari XE series for example). Basic is usually implemented as an interpreted language. There are a wide variety of Basic interpreters available for the Atari ST including ST Basic (the one bundled with every ST), GFA Basic, Fast Basic, and Real Basic. There are also several compiled versions of Basic available including GFA Basic (compiler), LDW Basic, Softworks Basic, Philon Fast/Basic M and True Basic (*by Kemeny and Kurtz, the originators of Basic). The greatest advantage of Basic is its ease of use. That is not surprising, since that was the original concept. Critics of basic say that because of its unstructured nature it leads to "spaghetti code", source code that rambles through the program. Most Basic programmers make indiscriminate use of the "dreaded" GOTO statement. This makes program flow hard to follow without a large number of comments or REM statements. All variables are global, they are available everywhere in the program. This leads to unwanted modification of variable values, called side effects. Modern implementations of Basic attempt to make it more structured. They contain program flow control statements that make the use of GOTO statements unnecessary. They even allow the localization of variables and procedures with parameter passing. With all of its so-called faults, most programmers will admit that it is easier to get a small program up and running in Basic than any other language. Cobol (COmmon Business Oriented Language) is another popular unstructured language. It remains important today because many businesses are still using custom applications written in Cobol. Cobol programmers are still in demand to maintain and update Cobol programs written 20 years ago. As yet, there is no implementation of Cobol for the ST. There are, however, Cobol implementations for the IBM PC and even 8 bit CP/M machines. These implementations might run on the ST with the help of pc Ditto or the CP/M emulator. Structured programming languages are characterized by block structure (Begin ... End), absence of line numbers (always), strong data typing (mandatory declaration of variables), limited scope of variables, parameter passing by value or by address, and the five basic control structures: 1) if ... then ... else 2) for ... next 3) while ... 4) repeat ... until 5) case ... of Most allow the GOTO statement but restrict its range to within the block. These features are worth discussing individually and comparing them to those of unstructured languages. Block structure consists of the use of subprograms, subroutines, functions and procedures. A block structured program usually consists of a main program which does little else than call subprograms. Subprograms then call other subprograms or even call themselves (recursive programming). Each subprogram consists of a group of statements and should be functionally distinct. This makes the structure of a program easier to follow. A program block has delimiters that define its start and finish, the "begin" and "end" of Pascal or the terse { and } of C. A block may occur within a program or procedure, such as if...then begin...end else begin...end. Program line numbers began when the primary means of input to a computer was punch cards. Each card was numbered and held one line of code. The numbers allowed the computer to determine the correct order of execution in case the cards were shuffled. Punch cards were succeeded by teletype terminals. Text editors on this hardware were line oriented. Line numbers were necessary to reference lines for editing or listing. Today's CRT terminals use full screen editors that reference lines with the cursor. Now, the only reason that line numbers might be required is for targets for goto or gosub statements. This is resolved in structured languages by the use of labels. A label is an identifier used as a statement. It might be declared as a label or it might be identified by a trailing colon. Eliminating line numbers makes it convenient for the programmer. Now it isn't necessary to renumber a program to make room for adding a few lines. Commonly used functions or procedures can be copied into a program from a library without the need to renumber. Data typing is useful in that it makes it easier for a compiler to reserve memory for data. It also helps avoid several types of programming errors. Variable declarations are required for variables. Type declarations are required for complex data structures like arrays and records. A structured language carefully checks the types of arguments to operators and functions. It is not allowed to multiply a real by an integer variable. Because these operations are sometimes necessary, transfer functions or casts are available to convert data types. This requires the programmer to consider data typing more carefully and explicitly call the necessary transfer functions rather than trusting the implementation to make the decisions for him. In structured programming languages, the scope of a variable is generally limited to the procedure in which it is declared. These are known as local variables. Variables which are declared outside of any procedure are global variables, available anywhere in the program. Controlling the scope of variables limits the occurrence of "side effects". If you are in the habit of using "i" as a loop counter and you exit a loop to execute a subroutine which also uses "i" as a loop counter, you might return from the subroutine with an altered value of "i". In a large program, this type of error can be very difficult to find. In a structured language, the loop counter declared in the subroutine would be distinct from that declared in the main program, avoiding the side effects. One of the objectives of structured programming languages is the creation of reusable procedures. These procedures can be saved in a library file and brought into the source file using an include directive to the compiler. Several features of a structured programming language make this possible, absence of line numbers and local variables included. Another feature that helps make this possible is parameter passing. When a function or procedure is called in a structured language is called, arguments to the function are passed to the subprogram when it is called. There are two basic ways to pass the arguments, by value or by address. When a parameter is passed by value, a copy of the variable is given to the subprogram which can be used without affecting the actual variable. In some cases, when an effect on the actual variable is desired, or the variable is an array or other large data structure, too big to copy, the address of the actual variable is passed as a parameter. This allows the subprogram to access and modify the actual variable. The five basic control structures or variations of them are found in all structured programming languages. Some languages have additional control structures, but the basic five are all that is required for structured. Note the absence of the GOTO control structure. Most languages have the GOTO because it is useful for exiting from nested loops and other limited applications. Some languages have included control structures such as BREAK and EXIT to make the use of the GOTO the least desirable means of control in all cases. Still, the controversy continues. Many implementations of structured programming languages are available for the Atari ST. Almost all are compilers or pseudo compilers. One structured interpreter is Alice, a Pascal interpreter. Compiled versions of Pascal include: Personal Pascal, TDI UCSD Pascal, Philon Pascal, Pecan UCSD Pascal, Metacomco Pascal and Prospero Pro Pascal. There are more C compilers than any other language available for the ST. The original high-level language for the ST was Alcyon C sold by Atari as part of the developer's kit. Other C's for the Atari include: Hippo C, Lattice C, Megamax C, GST C and Mark Williams C. There is also a "shareware" C compiler available. There exists two structured languages which can be considered modern structured. They were developed only in the last few years and are just now becoming available. They are Ada and Modula 2. In addition to the features of a traditional structured language, they include such features as modular compilation and multi-tasking. Ada was developed by a committee appointed by the Department of Defense. Modula 2 was written by Nikolas Wirth, the author of Pascal. Both languages have the same basic objectives, and both have the saem basic features. Because Ada was designed by a committee, it is complex and has virtually every feature that anyone on the committee desired. Threaded interpreted languages (TIL) use a different approach to programming. The only popular TIL is Forth. In Forth, you don't write programs, you define words. TILs consist of primitives, words that have been defined as part of the kernel of the language. New words are defined in terms of the primitives and/or previously defined words. Definitions are built until execution of a single word is analogous to executing a program. Data in Forth is manipulated on a stack using postscript or reverse polish notation. This notation is unfamiliar to most people, but is really more efficient. In fact, most other languages convert pre-fix notation to post-fix notation internally prior to execution. This fact is hidden from the programmer in other languages. Programming in Forth requires a different way of looking at a problem than other languages. Forth keeps the programmer closer to the hardware than other high level languages. Forth is fast and powerful. These features reflect the intentions of the author of Forth, Charles Moore, when he wrote the original Forth to control the operation of telescopes in an observatory. Forth programmers are dedicated to this way of thinking. A national Forth Interest Group has developed and placed in the public domain a version of Forth known as FIG-Forth. Implementations of this language are available int he public domain on virtually every small computer including the Atari ST. Commercial implementations of Forth for the Atari include: 4XForth, Mach 1 Forth, H&D Forth and Abacus Forth/MT. It can be seen that the purpose of computer languages is to hide the details of computers from the programmer. Assembly languages uses pneumonics to hide the ones and zeros of machine language. High level languages hide the details of machine language. Modern structured languages use modular compilation to hide the details of procedures from the main program. Symbolic and declarative languages hide even more of the details from the programmer. The ultimate programming language is known as natural language programming. The combination of natural language programming with voice recognition and speech synthesis hardware may some day make possible a computer like HAL of 2001 fame. Symbolic languages tend to hide the programmer from the data. While program control is similar to more conventional languages, data structures are different. Data is represented by symbols which are actually pointers to the data. Because many operations can be performed without regard to the data type, the programmer doesn't have to consider this. Symbols are allocated and bound dynamically. This means that arrays or lists don't have to be dimensioned and can be composed of many different data types. The first symbolic language, Lisp (LISt Processing), is almost as old as Fortran. Although Fortran is almost the same today as it was 20 years ago, Lisp has evolved significantly. Logo is a somewhat simplified subset of Lisp. XLisp is a public domain version of Lisp written in C and available for the ST. Metacomco Cambridge Lisp is also available. Digital Research Logo is provided with the Atari ST along with Basic. Declarative languages have developed as a further effort to hide the details. Prolog (PROgramming LOGic) is the most common declarative language. A declarative language attempts to hide the details of the program structure from the programmer. In essence, the programmer describes the relations between the objects or data in symbolic logic and then asks the program to solve a problem or answer a query. This is the distinction between declarative languages in which you declare the problem and imperative languages in which you describe each step in solution of a problem. Personal Prolog and a public domain version of Prolog are available for the Atari ST. Included with the XLisp interpreter is a version of Prolog written in Lisp. Symbolic and declarative languages are almost always interpreted. Because of this and because of the dynamic nature of the languages, they are slow and require large amounts of memory. They are, however, the languages of choice for artificial intelligence applications and the development of expert systems. There is an enormous variety of programming languages available for the Atari ST. Selection of a language can be difficult. Factors that should be considered include: cost (many are public domain or shareware), application (some languages are particularly well suited to specific applications), size (large programs need a langauge or implementation that allows modular compilation), and ease of use. If speed or code size are important, consider assembler. If only execution speed is important, use an interpreter. Most programmers have several languages and use the one best suited for the current problem. Some programmers, like me, just collect languages and implementations and enjoy programming in each of them for its own elegance. Happy programming Atarists. * * * * * * * * * * LET'S BUILD A MAILING LIST by Joe Waters [Reprinted from the March 1988 issue of Current Notes.] One of the most crucial tools in my ST arsenal is Versasoft's dBMAN, "the intelligent database manager." This program stores the CURRENT NOTES subscriber list, prints out monthly mailing labels (over 2,000 strong!), stores and prints out the Current Notes Library labels, automatically prints out all my subscriber renewal notices and the invoices for CN store sales. This is a program that gives the user a LOT of flexibility. However, power and flexibility usually come at a price. In this case, the price is complexity. Although dBMAN can do almost anything you want, to effectively tap this power, you must learn how to handle dBMAN command files. And that, in turn, requires learning a programming language. If you've ever programmed anything at all, the job is not as difficult as you might think. Unfortunately, however, many who have relied on the dBMAN manual for instructions have found the going tough indeed! So, with this column, I'll try to lend a hand. Note that, although I use dBMAN for my examples, much of what is discussed will also apply to a wide variety of database programs. [If you don't have dBMAN and are not sure whether you really want it or not, Versasoft has released a demo program of the latest version (4.0) of dBMAN. The demo stores a maximum of only 20 records but can be used to give the program a try. It is available this month, along with the programs and code in this column, in the CN Library as disk #219. More about the latest release of dBMAN below.] Let's start with something simple yet universally useful, a mailing list. We need a structure (a database) that holds name and address information and a phone number. We want to add information to the database and make corrections or updates as needed. And finally, the most important requirement, we want to get the information back out in a variety of different formats (list of names and addresses, list of names and phone numbers, mailing labels, etc). Let's see how we would accomplish this with dBMAN. Create Your Database A database consists of a number of records. Picture a 3x5 card file as a database with each card representing a separate person (record). The information is laid out (structured) so that each card looks the same, for example, name on the first line, street address on the second line, city, state, and zip code on the third line, and phone on the fourth line. Every item of interest recorded on each card corresponds to the various "fields" found in individual records in a database. To create a database, then, we need to define the fields, or the kind of information, we want stored in each record. In dBMAN, to define a field, we give the field a name, indicate what kind of data we want stored and how much space we want to reserve for the information. dBMAN has four kinds of data fields: character, numeric, date, and logical. A character field can hold letters and numbers and, indeed, any character you see on your keyboard. For a mailing list this is the kind of information we need. We would reserve space for a name (with first name and last name stored in separate 18 character fields), a street address (30 characters), a city (18 characters), state abbreviation (2 characters), zip code (5 characters--or 12 characters if you want the longer zip code format), and a phone number (12 characters). Even though the zip code contains only numbers, we still store it as a character field. A numeric field is for numbers that you would perform mathematical computations on such as prices, quantities, weights, etc. Although we may want to sort on zip codes, we would never add them up or multiply them! With the above information in hand, you are ready to create your database structure. Enter dBMAN and use the CREATE command to create a database called MAIL1 (or whatever name you like). dBMAN automatically puts you in a form requesting that you supply a field name, type, and length. Enter LNAME (last name) for the field name, C for type of field, and 18 for length. Use the down arrow to enter a new field. For the second field enter FNAME (first name), C for type, and 18 for length. Using the information indicated above, fill in the rest of your fields. The completed structure is presented in Figure 1. When you have all the information as you want it, press CONTROL+S to save your database structure. Entering Data Well, you have the form for a database, but you don't have any information in the database yet. To add information to a database, use the APPEND command. (You are already USING MAIL1, but if you were not, you would have to issue the USE command to indicate what database you wanted to work with before issuing the APPEND command.) You are presented with a blank form where each field is identified by name with an inverse video area indicating the space available for the information required by each field. When later you need to change or "edit" the information, the EDIT command presents you with the same format for changing data. Fill in the blanks (see Figure 2). To add a second record, press ^N for NEXT and a new blank form is shown. Fill in the second record and continue in this manner until you have a half dozen or so records. When you have your last record filled in, press ^S for SAVE. The append process ends and you are back at the dBMAN command level. Now you have a database with data in it. This is your typical situation. From now on, you can add more information, edit the information already in the database, or list the information any particular way you want. To add more information, you would type APPEND once more and repeat the process as above. Let's not do that now. Let's try instead EDITing the information already in the database. Enter the EDIT command. You are immediately shown information in the current record. Look at line 4 toward the top of the screen (the one that starts with MSG:). On the right side of that line, it tells you what database you are using and what record you are looking at. To move back toward the beginning of the database, enter ^P (for Previous record). To move forward, enter ^N (for Next record). You can use this method to look at all the information in your database. As you view each record you could change any information you wanted by just moving the cursor down to the appropriate field and replacing the data already there. If you make an unwanted change, you can always exit by hitting ^Q (for Quit); no permanent changes are recorded. If you make changes you want to keep, enter ^S (for SAVE) to exit. If you make any changes in a record and then use ^N or ^P to move to a new record, the changes ARE saved as you move on to another record. Displaying Your Data Although you can use EDIT to browse through your records, more often than not, you would prefer a simple LIST of the information in your database. To list all the information in your database to the screen, enter LIST ALL and watch everything scroll up the screen before your very eyes. In our example database, a record's information does not fit on an 80-character line so the info is wrapped around to a second line. Your printer can handle more than 80 columns if you move it to a condensed mode. Sending commands to the printer, however, will be the subject of a future column. You can also use the DISPLAY command to look at your data. Enter DISPLAY ALL. Note the difference on the screen. Using DISPLAY, the data does NOT wrap around to a second line. Everything is on one line. Of course you can only see part of the line on the screen. To see the rest of the line, use the CONTROL plus left and right arrow keys to move the display to the left or right as needed. The DISPLAY command will only show you one screenful of data at a time and wait for your prompt before it shows the next screen. The LIST command will list the entire database without stopping. Let's just look at SOME of the information by producing a list of last name, first name, and phone number. Use the list command: LIST ALL LNAME,FNAME,PHONE There's your list on the screen. Want that list printed? Simple again. Make sure your printer is on, then issue the following command: LIST ALL LNAME,FNAME,PHONE TO PRINT As you can see, you can list (or display) only those fields you are interested in. Experiment using the list (or display) command to show other fields in your database. Sorting Your Data If you entered your data randomly, the list printed above is in the order you entered your data. Suppose, however, that you want this list printed in alphabetical order by last name. You want to sort, or INDEX, the database on the LNAME field. Use the INDEX command. (The INDEX and SORT commands, however, are different. I will talk about the SORT command some other time.) It creates a new file, called an index file, needed to produce the listing order you want. Each index file needs a name--it can be whatever you want. For simplicity, let's use the field name we are indexing on to be the name of the index file: INDEX ON LNAME TO LNAME With the above command, you have created a new file (called lname.ndx). (To see all the files in your A: directory, enter LIST FILES A:*.*). Try listing your data to the printer again as you did earlier. You will see that all the names are now listed in alphabetical order. To keep your index up to date, always specify the index file when you use the database, i.e. say USE MAIL1 INDEX LNAME. With the index in force, when you edit or list, the records are presented in alphabetical order by last name. If you add data to the database, dBMAN automatically updates the index. If you use the database without indicating the index, adding data to the database will not update the index at the same time since you didn't specify an index. You can always update your index with the following set of commands: USE MAIL1 SET INDEX TO LNAME REINDEX Mailing Labels The explanations given above may go a long way toward satisfying the needs of many users. However, it won't produce mailing labels. The DISPLAY and LIST commands produce printed output where all (or part) of the info from each record appears on one line. For a mailing label, we need to split that information onto three lines. In addition, we are not going to want all those gaps between different fields that appeared when we listed the data in columns. How are we going to do it? Go to the top of your file (type GO TOP) and issue the command (dBMAN output is shown in lowercase below for a sample record with my name): ? FNAME,LNAME Joe Waters (The "?", like in BASIC, means "PRINT".) You see the first name field printed followed by the last name field. Try this: ? FNAME+LNAME Joe Waters Output looks the same although in this case we are printing one big field consisting of the combination of the FNAME (18 characters) and LNAME (18 characters) fields for a total of 36 characters. Now, we get to use one of many, many dBMAN functions, the TRIM function. Try this: ? TRIM(FNAME)+' '+TRIM(LNAME) Joe Waters What happened? You printed the first name and last name but this time there was only a single space separating the two names which, of course, is what you would like on your mailing label. The TRIM function lops off trailing blanks from a field. Since all the blanks were deleted, we had to add a blank (the expression +' ' above) before printing the last name. This certainly could be the first line of our mailing label. The second line is easy since all it would have is the street address: ? STREET 122 N. Johnson Rd The third line holds the city, state, and zip. This line will, once again, require using the TRIM function: ? TRIM(CITY)+', '+ST+' '+ZIP Sterling, VA 22170 There you have the third line of your label. Now, all you have to do is write a program that prints these three lines, and then prints three blank lines to skip to the top of the next label, for every record in the database. (If your mailing labels are one inch from the top of one to the top of the next, and if your printer is set at six lines per inch, you need to print six lines per label.) Write your program by constructing a dBMAN COMMAND file. A command file is a simple text file. With version 3 or 4 of dBMAN, you create a command file, we'll call this one LABEL, by using the MODIFY COMMAND: MODIFY COMMAND LABEL Version 2 of dBMAN does not support MODIFY COMMAND. You have to exit dBMAN and use an editor to create your command file. This is terribly inconvenient. Having a simple text editor built into dBMAN is one of the most important features of Version 3. (More on different versions below.) Create the command file you see reproduced in Figure 3 below. The first line indicates the database to use (including the appropriate index if any). Then, you go to the top of the file. andstart a simple loop through each record (DO WHILE .NOT. EOF) until you reach the end of the file. For each record, print the three mailing label lines and then three blank lines. The DO WHILE loop is not going to move the record pointer to another record. You must do that. You do it with the SKIP command which moves the record pointer to the next record in your database. The ENDDO command marks the end of your DO loop and sends up back to the top where we, once more, print out a mailing label. This continues until the SKIP commands moves you past the last record to the End Of File at which point the DO LOOP is done and your command procedure ends. Once all your statements are entered, use CONTROL+S to Save the command file. To execute it, type DO LABEL. That's it. Mailing labels will now start rolling off your screen. If things don't look just right, enter MODIFY COMMAND LABEL to check your command file and make any needed changes. When things look right on the screeen, you can try the printer. Enter SET PRINT ON and then type DO LABEL. Now, your output will be directed to the printer as well as to the screen. When everything is working fine, you might want to put the SET PRINT ON command right in the beginning of your LABEL command file with a SET PRINT OFF line added at the bottom. Now, that isn't so hard after all, is it? If you put an asterisk (*--which indicates comment) before the SET PRINT ON command line in a command file, the system ignores that line. You can then experiment with printing results only on the screen and not using up reams of paper. Try modifying this command file to print out information in different formats on different lines. Check out the SPACE() function and the ?? command in your manual and see if you can figure out how to use them. Have some fun experimenting with your new found "programming" language. Can you figure out how to print out labels two across? Next month, we'll give you the answer to that one. dBMAN Version 4.0 Versasoft is the publisher of dBMAN. However, Atari set up an agreement with Versasoft to market dBMAN. The product was at Version 2.0 when Atari started marketing it. Atari could sell Version 2.0, while Versasoft retained rights to product upgrades. When version 3.0 became available, owners of version 2.0 were notified by Versasoft and could upgrade (I believe the upgrade cost me $45 at that time). All of this is kind of industry standard. The odd thing here, however, was that Atari continued to sell Version 2.0. Long after Version 3.0 was available, Atari was selling Version 2.0. Version 3.0 was significantly better than Version 2.0 and many buyers were rightfully dismayed when they purchased a "new" dBMAN from their local Atari store only to find that it was Version 2.0. Whatever the wisdom of such an arrangement may have been, it is over now. Versasoft once more controls the marketing of dBMAN. They now have released Version 4.0. When you buy a Versasoft version of dBMAN, it will have Version 4.0 in the box. The retail price of Version 4.00 is $249.95 for the interpreter and $249.95 for the Run time version. To upgrade your copy of dBMAN, send your original diskettes, and a check, money order, or a Visa/Master Charge number and expiration date to VersaSoft--Update, 4340 Almaden Expy, Suite 250, San Jose, CA 95118. Update Prices: Version 2.x to 4.0 Interpreter: $80; Run time: $70. Version 3.x to 4.0 Interpreter: $45; Run time: $40. If you updated to version 3.0 on or after September 1, 1987, simply include a copy of your VersaSoft invoice and pay only the difference in price. For example: If you upgraded your interpreter to version 3.00 and paid $50, you can upgrade to ver 4.00 for only $30 ($80--$50). Offer expires April 1, 1988. I have only recently received version 4.0 so I can not give you a complete report. I can tell you that Version 4.00H has some bugs. Yesterday I obtained Version 4.00K so the version you get should be at least up to "K". If not, contact Versasoft. Version 4.0 database files are not directly compatible to Version 3.0 and must be converted. The original conversion program I received had some bugs and caused me some difficulty. However, when I contacted Versasoft, I discovered that a new conversion utility was available from their BBS free for the downloading. It's is too early to give you a full review of the latest version, but, just to whet your appetite, let me list some highlights available in version 4.0. dBMAN now reads and writes dBASE III+ data files. A new BROWSE command allows full screen--multiple record editing. MEMO fields are now available for a free form variable length text field. Commands can now be appreviated using four-letter short-cuts. Custom data entry screens can now easily be created with the SET FORMAT TO command. Many new dBASE commands and functions (PUBLIC, PRIVATE, PARAMETERS, ALIAS, RANGE, CDOW(), CMONTH(), STUFF(), FOUND()...) have been added. Over 60 new commands and syntax enhancements including time arithmetic, LIKE (wild card pattern matching operator), and the ability to save and restore screen images. Version 4.0 is FASTER with a user definable cache buffering for programs and data. And, finally, a new 400+ page manual is included with each interpreter update. * * * * * * * * THE DESKTOP PUBLISHING MARKET What Are Your Choices? by Wm. Price [Reprinted from the March 1988 issue of Current Notes.] DTP Takes Off Desktop publishing continues to be the hottest ticket in the PC market place. In 1986, some 4000 software packages were sold. Sales in 1987 will reach 53,000 and more than 300,000 are forecast for 1990. From a $3 million base today, dollar sales are expected to almost triple by 1990. Associated computers, image scanners, and laser printers will follow the same trends. For years, office computing--namely IBM--has driven the home computer market. But there is now an emerging trend--experience in a richer and wider variety of home computing products is beginning to influence the selection of office systems. A theme that can now be heard more frequently is, "I have more computing and communications capabilities at home than are available in the office." This is demonstrated by the new breed of powerful and versatile desktop publishing systems that are being delivered at incredibly low prices. The original STAR hardware and software system developed by Xerox was high priced and aimed at the office market. As a consequence, it has been slow in sales compared to other desktop publishing hardware and software. The genius of Apple, teamed with Aldus and Adobe, introduced greater capabilities at lower cost and targeted retail outlets for sales. Desktop publishing moved into the home and office environment to spawn a new industry and revolutionize the way small printing and graphics companies do business. And it accomplished this with general rather than special purpose hardware. Corporations that produce large quantities of documentation by contract typesetting have now established in-house desktop publishing capabilities. In government agencies with central publishing organizations, reasonably priced desktop publishing facilities are beginning to spread to the far corners of the agency to establish decentralized operations. The central facilities of the U.S. Government Printing Office, the largest publisher in the world, are being eroded. Roles and responsibilities are changing as they did when word processing moved out of the central typing pool to the desk of almost every secretary in an agency or corporation. The issues are control and economy. Users simply want control over their work and over their presentations. With desktop publishing, they now have this control over results as well as schedules and costs. Atari and DTP There is an adage, "While the apple pie is hot, put the cheese on it so it will melt." That is precisely what Soft Logik has done with Publishing Partner which still holds the lead for ST-based desktop publishing systems. Fleet Street Publisher has not been able to bring all the pieces together, and the time lag in doing this is widening the distance between these two systems. In fact, a new "Professional" version of Publishing Partner may be on the streets by the time you read this. Atari, unfortunately, doesn't appear to understand this principle. The Mega is not much more than a repackaged 520 or 1040. Even though there is a new operating system, the blitter, and additional RAM, this is not an astounding advancement like that offered by the Mac II over the SE and earlier Macs. The Atari PC IBM clone had the kind of features that would clearly make it stand out in the market place. The mouse support alone would make it a singular choice among the compatibles and clones. Atari waited too long, however, and the Blue Chip and Commodore PC have now nibbled away a good part of the market. The apple pie (not Apple's) is getting smaller. And for all practical purposes, the Atari PC, in its present incarnation, can be relegated to the Sunnyvale museum of good ideas that never made it. The Atari Laser The Atari laser printer is yet another example of what may be too little, too late. It ignores the success from wider market applicability that could have been offered by adopting Postscript. With the wide-spread adoption of Postscript by over 20 of the laser printer manufacturers and big systems producers like IBM, DEC, and Wang, Atari simply did not pay attention to the handwriting on the wall. Why should one buy the stripped down Atari printer rather than the Hewlett-Packard which is lower in price? Why buy a printer that is dependent on the unique GDOS which has problems and is not fully accepted by Atari software developers? Why buy a laser printer that is dependent on a unique desktop publishing system, a unique set of fonts, and one that is not compatible with other printers and drivers in the marketplace? Remember the grief suffered with non-Epson compatible printers? And why buy a laser printer (an electro-mechanical device) from a manufacturer that has made a virtue of its disdain for users and has a solid track record of non- support for its products? Atari has not been as successful with mechanical products (Chinon floppy drives, hard disks, and dot matrix printers) as they have been with electronics where they excel. In considering the new Atari laser printer, be sure to take a close look at current trends in desktop publishing software. Any software of importance is built around fonts and drivers compatible with Postscript. And for good reason! These systems give flexibility to use a wide range of laser printers available in an equally wide range of features and prices. Postscript also provides the user with a vast selection of fonts and the additional capability of using a higher quality (resolution) phototypesetting device. Can you envision the developers of ReadySetGo ST! or the Linotronic phototypesetter making an investment to support a narrow GDOS or DeskSet market? The extensive range of type fonts that are available from Postscript compatibility are significant. The variety and quality of these fonts are superb, and almost any need can be met from a catalog of well over 500 Postscript fonts from a growing number of producers. Another reason for choosing Postscript is the way it produces different point sizes. From a single font, Postscript beam strokes the outline of a character and fills it in. An algorithm scales the size to produce fonts ranging from 6 points to as large as a page or over 700 points. These multiple sizes are generated from a single set of data for each font. For most non-PostScript printers, such as the Atari Laser and the Hewlett-Packard, separate character sets are required for each point size. A single set for one point size contains pixel images for each of the characters in that size. With a variety of sizes, this extracts a toll on RAM as well as on printing speed. An example of this is well illustrated by Mac fonts used to drive the Image Writer. A separate set of characters must be installed in the system font library for each point size. At 6 points, the character set requires around 1,000 bytes. But for sizes up to 72 points, 30,000 bytes may be required. This cost in storage and printing speed is not demanded by Postscript. If all you want is daisy wheel output at higher speeds, by all means, buy a low cost laser printer like the Hewlett-Packard Laser Jet. But first, make sure that your software will support it! Or, if you are satisfied with a smaller selection of fonts and with being tied to a single desktop publishing system and printer, examine Atari's new offering in Deskset. However, if you want to go beyond this with flexibility, variety, and market support, Postscript is the clear answer. Don't be deluded by arguments that Postscript is slow and that better drivers are being developed. You'll be waiting for the next DeLorean or Bricklin automobile, and your search for fonts will be similar to finding spare parts for these cars. Also think of how you will unload one of these unique creatures and recoup a reasonable part of your investment. Atari could still carve out a niche if its laser printer were made Postscript compatible and if it, or its third party developers, made a range of Postscript fonts available for the ST. For those who cannot resist a laser printer for the home or are actively searching for one to use in the office, note that prices have declined and will continue to drop. The Apple Laserwriter no longer holds the lead in Postscript printers. In fact, the more powerful printers now entering the market are turning the Laserwriter into a relic. Accelerating this relegation is the fact that the Laserwriter, until last September, still has one of the earliest ROM versions of Postscript. New printers like the Qume ScriptTen come with Postscript Version 47 ROMs. Most of the newer printers are delivered with 2 megabytes of RAM and have an option for 3. Apple's LaserWriter Plus is limited to 1.5 megabytes. With additional RAM, printers can handle full page graphics, produce these graphics faster, and provide storage for additional downloaded fonts. The majority of new Postscript printers come with a ROM library of 35 fonts. Both serial and parallel printer ports are available. And many offer Qume, Epson, and Hewlett-Packard emulation in addition to Postscript compatibility. Fully configured, expect to pay in the neighborhood of $4,000 for one of these Postscript compatible printers. Laser Engines--White vs Black There are basic differences in laser engines that are characterized as "write black" and "write white." The original and father of desktop laser printing--Cannon--produces a write black engine. The black, image portion of the page is beam stroked and charged by the laser. Toner is attracted and fused to these stroked areas. However, between the beam strokes there are fine hair lines that are not charged and remain white. As a consequence of these fine white lines, the image is not rich black. This is most apparent in large areas where the blacks appear grey and mottled. With a magnifying glass, the stroked lines forming a character and the white hair lines between these strokes can be seen. When Ricoh introduced its engine, a technique the reverse of that used by Cannon was adopted--write white. Instead of beams electrostatically charging the black image area, the white background around the image is stroked or painted. The toner is attracted to the unstroked or image part of the page. The result is a richer, more dense black. This difference can be seen in samples of Helvetica type produced on both engines. Helvetica is a thin font, and on a write black engine it looks grey and anemic--much thinner than it should be. The write white version has fuller body. But the newest Cannon engine, the LBP-8II, corrects this problem and now produces a dense write black image. Beyond this recognizable difference, there are claims that write white characters have ragged edges. If this is true, try to rationalize why write black characters don't also have ragged edges. Additionally, some of the earlier write white engines showed traces of feathering or an ever so slight random dusting of toner. This evidently was caused by problems where small portions (pixels) in the white background were not charged. Reportedly this has been cured in recent production models. NEC has made yet another departure in technique. Instead of using a laser beam, its new SilentWriter LC-890 uses LED (Light Emitting Diode) shutters. Like the laser engines, it also produces 300 lines per inch resolution. An attractive device with two paper tray feeds, serial and parallel ports, a write white engine, and three megabytes of RAM, the NEC is delivered with Postscript Version 47. When selecting a laser printer, examine samples of small 6 point type size and observe how cleanly characters are defined and how sharp they appear. Most large size fonts produced by different printers will look the same except possibly for richness of the blacks. Examine large areas of black for denseness and even distribution. Another test is how well the printer produces a standard grey scale. On many printers, the blacks and dark greys aren't well distinguished. Neither are the whites or very light greys. The scale may appear to jump from black to medium grey and then white in three steps. The printer should display the seven steps of a grey scale. If you have an 8X or 10X magnifier (available from a photographic or lapidary store), examine the pixel pattern for evenness and sharpness. Finally, be aware that buying a laser is similar to investing in a stereo. The amplifier, tuner, turntable, and speakers are just the down payment. The endless purchase of record albums are the hidden cost. With laser printers, toner and belts must be changed every 3,000 or 5,000 pages. Check the duty cycle in pages per month and this will tell you how often the laser printer must be maintained. After all costs have been examined, the print service offered by various vendors such as CACI may be even more attractive. CACI supports Postscript on a 300 line per inch laser printer as well as 1200 or 2500 lines per inch on a high quality phototypesetter. Use your ST and Publishing Partner to develop your copy. Then just take or send a floppy disk in to have your file printed on a high resolution laser printer. At roughly a $1 a page, you would have to print quite a few pages before you even came close to the cost of buying your own laser printer. The Software Scene If it does come about, ReadySetGo may be the next major contribution to ST desktop publishing capabilities with Postscript compatibility. However, Manhattan Graphics and Letraset may have second thoughts about the ST market potential after looking at Atari's laser printer in its present incarnation. Those who have used ReadySetGo with the Magic Sac can already appreciate its capabilities. It is quick and easy to use. Although there are feature trade-offs, it is a strong competitor to Publishing Partner. Among ReadySetGo's nice features is the the use of style sheets like those in Ventura Publisher. Another strong feature is the smart separation of specifications for fonts, type styles, and sizes. Because of this separation, pages can rapidly be changed from one font to another, e.g. Helvetica to Times, while preserving the variety of type sizes and faces or styles in the original. With Publishing Partner, the font and size are linked on a single menu selection. If the font is changed, all the point sizes in the original will also be changed. And the different sizes will be changed to the single size identified in the menu selector box. The same is true for Pagemaker. ReadySetGo also has a nice automatic scrolling feature. When marking the layout of page columns, boxed areas, or when highlighting text for change, as you drag the mouse toward the right side or bottom of the page, the window automatically scrolls to display the off screen image area. Although Publishing Partner is cumbersome in this respect, it is comparable in its method of designing a page layout. The columns, gutter, and four margin dimensions are displayed in a menu. The values can be entered in inches, picas, or centimeters, and the page layout will be automatically drawn to these dimensions by the system. This is more accurate and less time consuming. But, ReadySetGo refreshes the screen much faster than Publishing Partner, and gives the feel that you are doing the job more quickly. Publishing Partner falls short with the lack of a hyphenation dictionary, but this will change. Automatic kerning is another shortcoming in several packages. However, this is a function of both the software and the Postscript font library. Data for appropriate letter pairs and their kerning space is carried in the Postscript font library--not in the desktop publishing software. Lacking a font library with this data, the software cannot automatically perform kerning. Kerning data and sometimes the applicable letter pairs are different for each font. Look at Helvetica, Times, and Palatino to examine these differences. This underscores the reason for staying with software and printers that are Postscript compatible. What About PageMaker? And what about the highly touted Pagemaker from Aldus--the system which all others are compared to. Pagemaker is singular. It stands out as the one package with the widest number of skillfully wordcrafted and obliquely polite reviews. An example: Pagemaker provides all the tools that a graphic organization uses in the design and layout of publications. Its implementation of these tools follows the same manner that designers are familiar with in developing their page layouts. However, if you are producing large, multi-page documents with a variety of styles, other desktop publish- ing systems may be more appropriate. What this says is that Pagemaker isn't easy to use. It's a labor of love. Pagemaker is proof again of the simple principle that feature-rich, by definition, means complex. But, Pagemaker does bring with it most all the capabilities that will be needed for publishing--and more. It is not easy to use, but it is powerful. For those that have used Pagemaker with the Magic Sac, the amount of effort that goes into producing a publication is readily apparent. A feature by feature comparison of desktop publishing software requires a separate article, if such a comparison would clearly identify a singular choice. More on this later. For the moment, Publishing Partner, ReadySetGo, and Pagemaker all address the basics required to design and produce typeset publications. One simple capability that is lacking in Publishing Partner is the ability to change type face or other characteristics with the search and replace editing tools. This facility would allow you to replace the words "caveat emptor" throughout the text with the same words in italics. At the moment, type specifications cannot be included with a replacement word. The Xerox STAR, ReadySetGo and Pagemaker do have this very valuable feature. What About Productivity? Beyond this, a comparison of features would not address the fundamental shortcoming in these desktop publishing packages. That shortcoming is the lack of productivity. For those that have used any of the three desktop publishing systems previously discussed, even a five-page document with a small variety of bold and italics faces will give you a mouse elbow and wrist. To define point size and then type face for each paragraph or section header in a document requires two separate menu selections. You can be thankful that the designated text stays highlighted between the two selections. Although Function Key macros in Publishing Partner and a similar style menu in ReadySetGo reduce some of the work, the price paid for typeset quality from these systems is the lack of productivity. CURRENT NOTES is an example of this productivity issue. A monthly publication averaging 76 pages, the final copy is organized and produced in camera-ready form by one person--the managing editor--in his "spare" time. If desktop publishing in its present form were used, it would probably quadruple time demands. From two to four people would have to be "hired" to work within a narrow time window to meet monthly schedules. An alternative would be to change from monthly to bi-monthly and buy breathing room. Until productivity is satisfactorily addressed by software developers, desktop publishing will continue to extract a price for its quality products. Ventura Publisher Productivity is where Ventura Publisher stands out. This system was developed by part of the old Palo Alto STAR team that had departed Xerox for better horizons. After Ventura Publisher was developed and its capabilities demonstrated, Xerox bought the team back. Ventura Publisher offers the best of both worlds. It has the menu and icon features like the other desktop publishing packages (it runs under GEM on a PC), but it carries this a step further with full-fledged style menus or macros. Each element of text that has a different style or format can be assigned a unique tag of the user's choosing. The typographic specifications such as font, type face, point size, line leading, margins, and justified format are defined in menus for each tag. The tag symbols can be as simple as "PH" to represent a paragraph header or "P" to represent paragraph text. The standard paragraph symbol used in some word processors can be defined as a tag. Tags can be imbedded in text as it is being prepared with a word processing system. This text file is then imported by Ventura Publisher. And here is where another difference comes to play. The text file can be processed as a batch, rather than an interactive, job. (Shades of the older mainframes without terminals!) Ventura Publisher searches for the tags imbedded in text, executes the appropriate typographic specifications, and builds the document. In this document building process, columns are examined for widows and orphans (a single paragraph line remaining at the very end or beginning of a page) and lines are automatically adjusted between columns and pages. In addition to horizontal line justification, vertical page justification is also performed. Another bonus with this approach is the ease with which styles and formats of an entire document can be changed. Without revising the text, specifications in the style menus can be modified and the text file reprocessed to these new specifications. Importantly, Ventura's text is always neutral to style, page layout, and typography. Style menus give this definition. The tags in text only mark and identify segments that are to be given different emphasis, and the required emphasis is specified independent of the text. Despite the fact that some interactivists may wince at thoughts of batch processing, this approach not only works, it is more productive. Interestingly, this is the way computerized typesetting was done in the 1960's and early 70's. It demonstrates once again that there is a right time and place for everything. Ventura has delivered an old wine in a new bottle. This system would really stand out on a 4 megabyte ST with multi processing. Ventura Publisher may run under GEM-PC with the new version of pcDITTO, but a hard disk is demanded. Like Pagemaker on the IBM PC, Ventura requires that you define the type of monitor, printer, and other variables of the system being used. This installation procedure generates an executable system of over 1.5 megabytes--thus the necessity for a hard disk. As part of the IBM architectual legacy, you just can't boot and run a large system like this. The hard disk and configuration requirements also apply to the PC version of Pagemaker. And the PC version doesn't match up to Pagemaker on the Macintosh or on the ST with Magic Sac. Interleaf A powerful competitor, that has the same type of tags and style menu features as Ventura, is Interleaf. This system operates on a Sun micro or an IBM AT. It is not only powerful, it comes with an explosive price of over $20,000. And if there is any question where the desktop publishing action is, Interleaf is being ported from the AT environment to the Macintosh. Price for the Mac version of this software will be around $2,500. But don't let the price make you overlook the capabilities of this package. It goes far beyond desktop publishing to support the life cycle management of information. It addresses the tasks from creation through communication, information base management, retrieval, repackaging of information products, and finally the disposition as a permanent archive or trash canned file. It was also the first workstation system produced for the IBM PC. The new information management system from Kodak and another jukebox optical disk retrieval system are among emerging systems that are based on Interleaf software. What about Big Blue? The IBM PC or PS-2 series are not well adapted for desktop publishing with the possible exception of Ventura Publisher. Pagemaker on the PC doesn't compete with the same software on the Macintosh or even the ST. Wang has jumped into the desktop publishing market by building an IBM PC compatible and putting its money on Pagemaker. (This says something about Wang's own hardware and software offerings). A better choice on the Wang PC, if the option is available, will be Ventura Publisher. Unlike the Macintosh or even the ST, the IBM PC and its clones just don't have the right graphic-based architecture to effectively support desktop publishing. Prior to the PC, IBM's experience was with mainframes and operating systems that directly supported programmers rather than end-users. The PC architecture and DOS are true to this tradition. MS DOS based systems are not intuitively obvious. A person with Alzheimer's desease can easily use an ST or a Macintosh. But this is virtually impossible with MS DOS. One reviewer put it squarely, "Applause for the IBM is like that for the dancing dogs. People are applauding not for how well they dance, but for the fact that they can dance at all." Trying to fit end-user (people literate) and graphic desktop publishing functions into the PC and its DOS environment is like trying to use a toothbrush for a drafting pen. Future Trends Desktop publishing is running counter to the trends of the paperless office predicted a half decade ago. Indeed, paper is not needed to communicate, to transfer or to file and maintain information. These functions can be best performed with information in electronic form. However, where information is presented to the reader, the medium of exchange will continue to be paper. This information will be presented in typeset quality with the facilities of desktop publishing. And this quality, this lubricant to reading, will remove the friction encountered with mono-spaced, single size type. Printed and other graphic presentations will take on a new role and a new meaning. The message is in the medium. There could even be an interesting marriage with CD-ROM applications where data base information could be displayed on the monitor or printed in typeset quality. Desktop publishing will give new emphasis to how information is presented and that the visual quality of these presentations will improve. But will substantive quality and content also improve? There are equally abundant examples to support answers of "Yes" and "No." Over the next year, ReadySetGo, Pagemaker, and probably Publishing Partner will be upgraded to include the full-featured style menu and batch processing options now available from Ventura Publisherand Interleaf. They will have to add these features to stay competitive. Aldus has already made the announcement for Pagemaker and version 3 should be on the street now. At the moment, the Atari ST is the only computer that allows you to operate all of these packages. There is no other single computer that supports TOS/GEM, Mac's Finder, PC DOS, CP/M, and around the corner--Unix! This gives you the opportunity to try a variety of software and make a decision for the home and the office before comitting to a more expensive hardware system. Armed with your ST and its MagicSac and pc-ditto emulators, you are in an excellent position to master trends in desktop publishing. And, with such variety, you may become the most well-versed expert in the office--at least the one with the most hands-on experience. Publishing Partner and pc-ditto can drive Postscript laser printers. Soon, Magic Sac will do the same if it can also emulate the AppleTalk network. In the interim, you can transfer your Magic files from Pagemaker or ReadySetGo to a Macintosh for production of laser copy. With this rich experience, substantial contributions can be made to the selection and use of appropriate systems for the office. And perhaps desktop publishing may become a sideline or even spawn a cottage industry operation after retirement. Ready? Set? Make your page! Reference Sources There are two monthly magazines devoted to desktop publishing, Publish! and Personal Publisher. I feel the latter is currently superior in content and coverage. Each issue has several articles focusing on specific topics such as fonts, laser printers, page layout styles, etc. There are also reviews of various publishing systems and updates examining features included in new releases of software. PC Magazine has had three cover feature articles on desktop publishing with sample output, as well as special features comparing laser printers. Of all the articles comparing capabilities and identifying shortcomings of software, the original feature and follow-up issue of PC Magazine is a must to read (see Volume 6, Numbers 3 and 13). A two-page layout was submitted to a graphics company experienced in using systems such as Pagemaker, ReadySetGo, Ventura Publisher, Harvard Professional Publisher, and Xpress. The layout included masthead, logo, graphics, two-column text runaround, and a variety of formats and type styles. The company produced laser output from each system. The different products were annotated to describe what the systems could not do and how easy or difficult it was to meet the layout and typeset product specifications. This two-part series of articles is one of the best evaluations of desktop publishing systems available. Mac User, Mac World, and Mac Week also provide good coverage of this topic. From Boston, there is a new quarterly journal from the National Association of Desktop Publishers. In the first issue, "Toner: The Black Gold of Electronic Publishing and Printing" gives tips on how to maintain laser printer quality. Seminars and workshops on desktop publishing abound. Jonothan Seybold has now focused on this facet of computing and is issuing a series of reports on desktop publishing and industry trends and organizing conferences that attract industry leaders. Recently in Washington, the first International Desktop Publishing Conference, a three day affair sponsored by the Government Printing Office, was held. Paperback publishers are also beating it to the street with specialized books on "How to Get the Most Out of..."! There are at least four books on Pagemaker, two on Ventura Publisher, and three devoted to the Postscript language. One is due out soon on ReadySetGo. Most were produced with the desktop publishing software that they describe. Additionally, there are excelent volumes on the general practice of publishing, type fonts, and page design. Locally, B. Dalton at Seven Corners, and Reiter's technical books in the District are among the best in stocking titles on this subject. * * * * * * * * * * An Introduction to Spreadsheets As Easy as 1-2-3 by Joe Waters [Reprinted from the September 1988 issue of Current Notes.] Several years ago, before personal computers were quite so commonplace in the office, a colleague approached me with a computing problem. This analyst had a number of economic time series (gross national product, exports, imports, etc) for a foreign country. The task was simple, convert the data to US dollars and then adjust the figures to account for inflation. Everything could be done easily, although not quickly, with a pencil, paper, and a calculator. Our company had a large mainframe computer. Wasn't there some way that THE COMPUTER could help with the task? Someone with programming experience could have done the job relatively easily. But, as is often the case, there was no "programmer" available that could just stop what he/she was doing to work on this task. Besides, the analyst was willing to learn and wanted to do the work himself. We had this large mainframe. If this user put in a request, he could reasonably expect to get access (password, etc) to the mainframe within a few days. Armed with access to the mainframe, he would then have to learn the operating system--what files were, how to create them, edit them, delete them, copy them, and so forth. To create a file, of course, he would have to learn how to use an "editor." But what would he put in the file? To solve the problem, he would have to learn a programming language. That simple calculator option was looking better all the time. Although we did not have personal computers available back then, we did have a minicomputer system (running under UNIX), with a relatively friendly user interface. Tasks were selected via a series of menus. One of the options in those menus provided access to what is known as a "spreadsheet" program. Spreadsheet programs, one of the handiest tools available on personal computers, were not available on our mainframe. Could this program be used to help a computer novice get his work done? The answer turned out to be a resounding YES! Using a spreadsheet is so easy and intuitive, that it only took about an hour of my time, spread out over a week or so, to provide all the instruction needed. The analyst was able to get his data in, do the manipulations required, and finally, format and print the results just the way he wanted. In fact, once the basic structure was set up, he was able to perform similar calculations for a number of other countries. All he had to do was enter the new numbers. The work, of course, took this fellow many, many hours but he was able to do it all by himself and do it far faster than could ever be done using the paper, pencil, and calculator method (and, of course, then typing up the results). Anyone who has used a spreadsheet understands what a wonderful tool this is. Now that PCs are widely available, more and more workers will be treated to the benefits of spreadsheets. For those of you who have never experienced a spreadsheet, let me explain briefly why it may be the perfect tool for a computer novice. The table below shows a structure common to many different applications. An initial column (column A) identifies various table components, and then a series of columns (B, C, and D), provide numerical information, in this case, data recorded over different years. Rows 1 and 2 give a table title, row 4 shows a title for each column, rows 6 through 10 give information on various "products." The last row provides a total for all products that year. Note that the last column provides a projection based on assumed growth rate. Many of you have had to make similar tables in the past. Of course, to get the table totals and the data for the projected growth rate, a calculator is usually used (and reused and reused to be sure all the calculaltions are correct). How would the above information be presented if you had a spreadsheet? Why, exactly as it appears in the table. A spreadsheet is just like a sheet of paper divided into rows and columns. The intersection of each row and column is called a "cell" and identified by a row number and a column letter. (The "TOTAL" for 1987 is in cell C-11.) You type on the spreadsheet just the way you would on a piece of paper except that your entries are placed in specific cells. To enter text, type the text. To enter numbers, type the numbers. At this point, you may be wondering, "If it is just like paper, what's the big deal?" The big difference comes when you discover that, besides text and numbers, you can enter formulas in a cell. For example, rather than adding up the five products for 1987 and putting their sum at the bottom of the column, you put in an equation: +C6+C7+C8+C9 +C10. You type in the equation, but what appears in the cell is the result of the formula (1,500). The great advantage of this formula comes when you discover, as you inevitably will, that some number must be changed. Product Dsales in 1987 were not 649. They were 469. Whoops. Mistake. Recalculate the sum. But with a spreadsheet, you need only go to the relevant cell and enter the new number. The TOTAL, which is expressed as the sum of the previous five entries, is automatically, and instantly, recalculated! The formula method was also used for the 1988 projections. Each cell in column D was entered as a formula: one plus the growth rate (stored in cell D5) times whatever was in the cell one position to the left. Thus, cell D6 was specified as 1.045 times C6 (that is, 1.045 x 260). The result, 272, is shown in cell D6. The formula for the total in 1988 was calculated like the totals in 1986 and 1987. Since the 1988 values are based on the 1987 values, when you changed the 1987 value for Product D, it affected not only the 1987 total, but also th e projection for Product D in 1988 and, therefore, the 1988 total. More recalculations! But with a spreadsheet that is all taken care of, again, automatically and instantly. What about changes in your assumed growth rate. No problem. Just change the 4.5% figure in cell D5 to whatever new estimate you want. All the entries in the 1988 column are recalculated instantly. If you have ever tried this kind of thing with a calculator, paper and pencil, you can readily see how handy a spreadsheet can be. Of course, you will have to learn how to use a spreadsheet. But, as I suggested earlier, that is not a particularly difficult task. Entering formulas is easy. If you prefer, you can just point to the cells you want to include rather than entering their explicit column and row reference. Commands are available to easily copy information, including formulas, from one cell to another. (For example, once you define a sum for one column, you can easily copy that definition to the next 2--or 200--columns with just a few keystrokes.) I have talked about spreadsheets without mentioning any particular product. The grand daddy of spreadsheet programs was the original VISICALC program which was introduced for the Apple II. VISICALC was also released for the Atari 8-bit market but SYNCALC seems to be the spreadsheet of choice for XL/XE owners. In the IBM world, Lotus 1-2-3, is clearly the leader of the pack. There are even Lotus "clones" available from other manufacturers that have an identical command structure to 1-2-3. I have been using VIP Professional, a Lotus clone, on the Atari Mega. Recently, Logical Design Works has introduced LDW POWER, a clone of Lotus Version 2.0. Although I have not completed a full analysis, the LDW POWER program certainly looks strong enough to replace VIP in my arsenal. The figure below shows a screen dump of LDW POWER with our sample table as discussed above. There are several other spreadsheet programs available for the ST. Some are Lotus clones; some are not. Some make very little use of GEM; others exploit GEM fully. Some are fast; some are slow. But they all work basically the same way. So, if you are a complete novice at computers and programming, rest assured that there is at least one class of programs that you can, indeed, master relatively easily. And, if you have a need for it, a spreadsheet can very often justify the purchase of your computer in the first place. * * * * * * * * * * WORD PROCESSORS ST Word Processors How to Pick the Right One for You.... by Jim Wallace [Reprinted from the April, 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Back in the Spring of 1985, it was a whole lot easier choosing a word processor for the Atari ST. Although GEM Write was originally supposed to ship with the ST, it didn't. What did ship was a non-GEM, non-"WYSIWYG" program called ST Writer, which was basically an 80-column version of the popular 8-bit program by the same name. Later, the first real "GEMized" program (called First Word) appeared, which offered more state-of-the-art features. Today, the Atari ST actually supports more word processors than any other computer on the market. Because in addition to the more than a dozen good ST word processors now available, you can also use most IBM, Mac, and CP/M word processors through inexpensive emulation! Indeed, in our history, computer users have never had the software selection that's now available for the Atari ST-- certainly, a truly remarkable computer! But unfortunately, along with this vast selection of software comes the difficult task of selecting which program is best for your needs. Can't See The Forest For The Trees?... Any astronaut can tell you that it's much easier to tell the "big picture" from a high earth orbit, than it is from the ground. This is because we tend to get lost in the fine details. So now, let's take a quick (but organized) bird's-eye view of the types and flavors of ST word processors now available. Word processors now run the gambit from simple "text editors" to full-blown "WYSIWYG" (What You See on the screen Is approximately What You will Get on paper) publishing programs. Most word processors however, fall somewhere between these two extremes. And ironically, although WYSIWYG seems like the likely choice, there are still many good reasons for using "old fashioned" text-only style programs. Text Editors Relatively simple "text editors" are not only used for programming and the fast creation of handy "script files," but are also used for producing "ASCII" text files for later import into desktop publishing programs. In fact, although I own almost every word processor available for the ST, I am now using one of these simple "text editors" to produce this article--and why? Because almost everything I write is either sent to a magazine editor, or is imported into a publishing program. The ability to quickly produce generic text files is what I need. I don't care at this stage of the process about formatting, graphics, text attributes, or whatever. I personally find that it is far better to "keep it simple," allowing me to concentrate on the content--not the final product. Since text editors aren't "burdened" by fancy screen graphics and other advanced formatting features, they generally perform much faster, and offer easier to read displays (less eye strain), and are both quick to learn and easy to use. While having most features wanted by programmers, they support only basic word processing functions. Features like bold and underlined text, headers and footers, spelling correction, etc. are generally not supported. Some examples: Micro-EMACS: An old "main-frame" text editor now available for the ST. Perhaps "the" choice for programers. This free, high-powered PD program offers "zillions" of features and can do just about anything. Tempus: This commercial program uses GEM and all the trimmings. Very fast screen updates...you'll love it! Interlink: Yes, you can use this telecommunication program's fast, built-in text editor for more things than you might think...try it! ED.PRG: A quick and dirty Unix text editor that's really handy. I keep this in my root directory for creating script files, notes, etc. on-the-fly. Look for it, and other PD (public domain) programs on your favorite BBS. Text-Only Word Processors Following dedicated systems like Wang and the IBM DisplayWriter, the first true word processors for personal computers soon emerged. Electric Pencil and WordStar for the Apple II, IBM, and CP/M machines like the original Kaypro were "golden oldies." Up a notch from text editors, these first-generation word processors offer additional features for working with words. Text-only word processors actually fall into at least two different categories: those that support only one text style (default text), and those that also support enhanced text styles such as bold, italic, etc. Default Text: These word processors are actually a carry-over from computer systems which did not have bit-mapped screens. Instead of displaying text attributes like bold on screen, they instead show command codes like "^B" to indicate that bold type is to be used by the printer, or a "^C" indicating that a word or line is to be centered. Examples include: ST Writer: A throw back to the old 8-bit days, but still powerful and very popular. This free PD program is also available in Spanish and German. (Ed. Note: Version 3.0 of ST Writer is now available as CN Library disk #321.) Wordstar: Yes, you can run both the CP/M and the IBM versions of this classic on your ST with software emulators. WordStar does "about everything," but is very hard to learn. PFS Write: This tremendously popular "bread and butter" IBM program can be used with "pc-ditto." Highlighted color text is used on screen to indicate text attributes such as bold (yellow), italic (red), etc. PFS Write is so "comfortable" to use that you may not at first notice its many powerful, practical features! Enhanced Text: Most programs use the ST's bit-mapped screen capabilities to display on-screen bold, underline, centering, etc. However, only the ST's built-in "default" screen fonts are used. The actual fonts which will print out are determined by the fonts which are built into your printer--not the fonts shown on the screen. Text-only word processors still dominate in the IBM world, and remain the real "work horses" of the industry. While most IBM programs don't show on-screen text attributes like bold or italic, most Atari ST programs do. While bit-mapped screens are usually an add-on on most IBM systems, they come standard on the Atari ST and the Mac. Some examples: First Word: First Word, First Word Plus, and Word Writer ST are all very similar, and are currently the most popular choices for the average user. (First Word Plus can also import and display graphics on screen in a somewhat limited fashion). Text-Pro: This program takes a different approach by offering the user two screens: one for quick editing, and one for "previewing" text attributes and formatting on screen. WordPerfect: Currently the world's most popular word processor. In fact, many companies will offer you a job if you are familiar with it! This is the only program that runs on the "big four" (IBM, Mac, Atari ST, and Amiga). If you can afford it, it's the BEST--especially for those really big jobs. "WYSIWYG" Word Processors These second-generation word processors are currently the most talked about and popular programs on the market. With them, "what you see on the screen is close to what you get on paper." The first popular program of this type on a personal computer was MacWrite, although a similar program first appeared on Xerox's "Star" work station. How are these second-generation word processors different from the rest? Well, next to desktop publishing, these programs offer "the works." This includes multiple on-screen fonts in varying point sizes and type styles, plus the integration of both text and graphics in a single document. If you know what MacWrite is like on a Mac, then you know what you can expect from programs like these. Personally though, I find this type of program (at least for now) to be my least liked of those available. For me, they are too slow and awkward for generating my much needed "ASCII text files," while not being nearly as powerful as true desktop publishing programs to fulfill my ultimate formatting needs. Thus, my own needs fall mostly at the extremes. But if you don't want to get involved with the more advanced publishing programs, this is probably what you're looking for. Some examples are: MacWrite: Use this MacIntosh program with the "Magic Sac" to discover what this is all about. Microsoft Write: Supports multiple, on-screen GDOS fonts but doesn't have graphic integration capabilities. Word Up!: This program comes closest to desktop publishing programs by supporting both on-screen GDOS fonts and integrated graphics. The Next Generation The upcoming "third-generation" word processors will look more like desktop publishing programs, and will use artificial intelligence. However, faster computers with higher resolution screens and other now-expensive features will be required to keep up with all this advanced software. For now, Atari's new Mega computers will be at the forefront of these new word processors for the "next generation." * * * * * * * * * * PRODUCTIVITY PROGRAMS How to Improve Your ST Productivity Confessions of a Neodesk/Revolver/UIS Junkie by Greg Csullog [Reprinted from the April 1990 issue of Current Notes.] The Pre-Neodesk Preamble Over the last four years, I have seen a lot of changes in software for the Atari ST. When I bought my 520ST in June 1985, the only piece of software available was TOS on disk. I remember demonstrating my 520ST to try and get others interested in buying one so we could have a users' group and provide each other with support. The sales pitch must have worked because over forty people bought 520STs in time for Christmas 1985 (not bad in a town of 4,000 people and for a computer that had only a handful of good software packages by December 1985). Some good software packages have appeared over the intervening years. Timeworks Desktop Publisher has been a workhorse for me for a couple of years. Word Writer used to be my word processor of choice but 1ST Word Plus is now my day-to-day word processor (I know that there are a lot of WordPerfect enthusiasts out there and, yes, WordPerfect Atari has the menu/mouse support for the ST but having endured WordPerfect on an XT for years, I have not been able to bring myself to buy and use WordPerfect Atari, yet). LDW is a great Lotus 123 compatible spreadsheet and I would not be without it. dbMAN is my database of choice because I have to have dBASE compatibility. dbMAN has a crude font end, cryptic help and overall lacks the elegance of dBASE; however, it provides the compatibility I need. Occasionally, I try my hand at programming but I do not enjoy it. I find it tedious to write computer code because I am not very good at it. However, I have purchased OSS Pascal (I was writing a PD telecommunications package until Simon Poole released UNITERM), Fast BASIC (I really like this language), and HiSoft BASIC. I have dabbled in C but I find it the most tedious language to work in (I told you I wasn't good at programming). I also bought pc ditto, then pc ditto II. I also bought Magic Sac, then Spectre 128 and then Spectre GCR. While I have not been able to reap the benefits of pc ditto II, I can tell you quite honestly that Spectre GCR is worth every penny. Many times, I have been asked why I would want to use PC and Mac emulators for the ST. I got comments to the effect, "If you want to run Mac software, why didn't you get a Mac?" Well, at the time I moved from a 520ST to a 1040ST, an AT clone with a 20 megabyte hard drive or a Mac with a 20 meg drive cost over $3,000 (Canadian dollars). The ST with a 20 meg drive was priced at about $2,000. However, it was not the price of hardware that was the determining factor; it was software. Atari ST software was, on average, one third to one half the price of PC or Mac software. I could not afford Aldus Pagemaker, WordPerfect, Lotus or dBASE for personal use and I refused to pirate them (virtually every PC user that I know has acquired a PC for home use because "I can get a copies of my software from work.") I buy my software and I could afford packages like Timeworks DTP, LDW, etc. The PC and Mac software that I do use was purchased by my employer; I certainly did not want to buy dBASE IV or Excel for home use! The programs and hardware add-ons that I have discussed so far have allowed me to become highly productive in a business/research work environment. However, being the zealot for productivity that I am, I wanted more, more, more. I am always on the lookout for tools that will speed me through my work with the least effort. Three of the most important tools that I have acquired to zip me through day-to-day work are Neodesk, Revolver and the Universal Item Selector (UIS). Neodesk Here is a simple rule that Atari ST users should live by: IF YOU HAVE AN ATARI ST WITH A HARD DISK, USE NEODESK. Neodesk is a replacement for the built in Atari desktop and it has extended the desktop's capabilities enormously. I cannot think of any other software package that I appreciate more than Neodesk (except, perhaps the UIS). Just look at figure 1, a snapshot of my ST's screen. On the right side of the figure, you can see that program icons have been placed directly on the desktop. Now, when I want to run my favorite programs, I no longer have to open up the folder where the program resides. For example, suppose I am running Uniterm to talk to a VAX computer and I want to exit and run 1ST Word Plus. With the standard Atari desktop, I would have had to: 1) stop Uniterm, 2) close the Uniterm folder, 3) open the 1ST Word Plus folder, and 4) double click on the 1ST Word program icon. Using Neodesk, all I have to do is: 1) stop Uniterm, and 2) double click on my 'Word Process' icon on the Neodesk desktop. Some of you reading this may say "Big deal, so you saved a couple of steps." However, if you consider the number of times I have to switch applications in a day and add up all those extra steps that I no longer have to carry out, then slowly, but surely, I save a good 15 minutes to half an hour each week not fumbling through folders looking for applications. At overheated labor rates that can easily be over $50 an hour, important cost savings can be realized by an employer with productivity increases like this. Do you see the little < symbols in the drive windows in figure 1? Neodesk is worth having just to get access to those little beauties. Ever have a situation where you touched a window and it covered up another one that you wanted to access later? Remember that you had to either move or close the window that was on top to get at the one on the bottom? If you have Neodesk, the problem disappears (at least at the desktop level). All the user has to do is touch the < symbol on the top window and the window gets pushed to the bottom. I maximize the area available for icons on my desktop by arranging my drive windows as shown in figure 1. All I do to 'top' the window on the bottom is touch the < symbol on the current top window. When I want to copy files from window-to-window, e.g. from D: to C:, I open up another window that, by default, occupies the area normally used by icons on the desktop and that brings up another point. You can see that the drive windows on Neodesk have vertical scrolling capability (see the up and down arrows) but no horizontal scrolling. Unlike the standard Atari desktop, Neodesk rearranges window icons to fit within the current window. If there are too many icons to fit, they are scrolled off in the vertical direction only. It only takes a little experience with Neodesk to realize that this makes much more sense than the original horizontal and vertical scrolling of the standard desktop's windows. Neodesk has tons of extra features like: Hot-keys: See the 2D CAD icon in figure 1. At the top of the icon is the letter 'J' indicating that this program can be started by holding the shift key and typing the letter J twice. Multiple file renaming: To name a group of files, select the group with roping or clicking and then hold the Control key and Shift key and click the left mouse button. This will bring up a dialog box to rename the first file selected. Once renamed, the dialog box will reappear for each remaining file to be renamed. Command line interpreter: For the diehard CLI enthusiast, a path to a CLI can be set from the Neodesk desktop. When the user types Control-B, the CLI is invoked. Now, all you DOS and UNIX advocates can quickly switch to CLI utilities like GULAM. Copy or move: Unlike the standard ST desktop, if you drag an icon for a file copy operation, Neodesk can copy or move the file. Anyone who has had to copy files into a folder and then delete the original files will appreciate the fact that the move option of Neodesk does this in a single step. I could go on and on but I had better get to Revolver and the UIS. But before I do, one final comment. I said that Neodesk is a must for hard disk users. While it can be used from floppy, its power is realized on an ST with a hard disk. Revolver Revolver is a switcher utility and then some. The best way to explain Revolver is by example. When I started my Mega 2 to write this article (I forgot to tell you that I moved from a 1040ST to a Mega 2), I started it with Revolver in my AUTO folder. Previously, I had set up Revolver to divide my Mega's memory into two 1 megabyte partitions and right now, I have Neodesk at the desktop in partition one and I am writing in 1ST Word Plus in partition two. While writing about Neodesk, I kept switching between the two partitions to use Neodesk to decide which feature I wanted to write about. Switching between partitions is painless; all I do is hold the Control-Left Shift-Alternate keys and zoom, I'm in the next partition. Remember my discussion about the productivity increase with Neodesk (and not having to root through folders)? Well, read on! In my full time day job, I use a 1040ST and Revolver does not do well on a 1040ST (1 megabyte of RAM is not enough). So, I have ordered a FrankenSTein RAM upgrade kit to boost my 1040ST's memory to 4 megabytes. I am going to buy another copy of Revolver and install it on my new multi-meg monster. I will then divide the memory into four 1- megabyte partitions. I plan to run the Neodesk desktop in partition one, Uniterm in two, LDW in three and dbMAN in four. Then, when I want to switch applications, all I have to do is jump between partitions. Talk about a productivity increase, wow! However, task switching is not Revolver's strength--rollouts are! What is a rollout? Take the example of the four partitions from above. When I head home after a day's work, all that I would have to do to preserve what I was doing is rollout each partition to hard disk. Rolling out makes an exact image of a memory partition, squeezes it to between 30 and 40 percent of its original size and writes it to disk. When I start my computer after a shutdown, all I have to do is roll in each of the partitions to return me to what I was doing last. When a partition is rolled in, everything that was in it, including desk accessories, memory resident programs and the current application are loaded in from hard disk in about 6 seconds! If LDW was running in a partition when it was rolled out, then LDW will be rolled in with the sheet that was being worked on at the exact spot when the rollout was performed. So, instead of saving my worksheet when I quit for the day, I will save the whole memory partition. With each of my four 1-megabyte partitions, I can load in different desk accessories and different memory resident programs. For example, in partition one I can load in GDOS (or G+Plus) and six of my favorite desk accessories. In partition two, I can omit GDOS and load six different desk accessories. With four 1-megabyte partitions, I can have the equivalent of four 1040STs running different programs, different accessories and different memory resident programs. I can even run color in one partition and monochrome in another. I can reboot one partition and not affect the other partitions (Programmers, you can crash your ST in one partition and not lose what you have loaded into another!) The best part of all, you can do all this from a single keyboard on one computer. Hey PC, Mac and Amiga owners, only on an ST, eh! Pity. If you are using an ST in the office, in the lab, or in any other business, you should boost the memory to two or four megabytes, install Revolver and increase your productivity dramatically. You will pay for the cost of the memory and Revolver in a short time. Every day you delay means you will get poorer performance from your ST than is possible. Revolver has only one drawback. pc ditto and Spectre GCR will not run with the memory partitioned. To turn your ST into a PC or a Mac, you will have to do a COLD restart and deactivate Revolver. Pressing the reset button (warm restart) will not work since Revolver protects the ST's memory from resets. Deactivation is accomplished by holding down the [Left Shift] and [Alternate] keys during the startup cycle (if you boot from hard disk, hold these keys after the hard disk driver installation message appears). Cold starts can be carried out by holding the [Control]-[Alternate]-[Undo] keys if you are using Neodesk with the Neodesk control panel accessory in memory. I do not know whether or not it is possible but it would be great if you could run pc ditto and Spectre in Revolver partitions. Imagine switching between PC, Mac and ST modes by holding down a couple of keys on the keyboard! The UIS Anyone who uses an Atari ST knows about the Atari file selector (FSEL) box. While the FSEL provides a common way of performing disk input/output operations, there are serious limitations to this utility. For example, if you want to switch drives you will have to edit the pathway specified by the FSEL. This requirement is a real pain for hard disk users. Here's another simple rule for ST users: USE A REPLACEMENT FILE SELECTOR BOX. My favorite FSEL replacement is the UIS. Figure 2 shows the UIS called from within LDW. [Figure 2 shows UIS II. A new version, UIS III, is now available. -JW] If you put the UIS in your AUTO folder, it will be called automatically by any Atari program that normally calls the default FSEL (just about every Atari program). The UIS dynamically determines the drives that you have (in the example shown in figure 2 these are drives A, B, C and D) and it posts a list of the drives. To switch drives, just click on one of the drive letters. If you add a drive, such as a RAM disk as drive F, the UIS will add the new drive to its list. The UIS also posts a list of default file extensions (e.g. .DOC, .ASC, .TXT, etc.). The first one in the list is passed to the UIS from the calling application, such as the .LDW extension as shown in figure 2. From LDW, if I want to import a Lotus 123 sheet, I would click on the wildcard extension (*) to display all files in the directory and then I would choose a .WK1 file from the updated file list. With the default Atari FSEL, I would have had to edit the file path to reveal the .WK1 files. See the letter P in the bottom left corner of the UIS? If you click on this letter, the current directory will be printed. If you drag an ASCII file's name from the file list to this letter, the file will print. You can MOVE, COPY, RENAME or DELETE a file or a group of files by dragging their names from the file list to one of the function names listed in the UIS. Did you ever try to delete a READ ONLY file. From the standard desktop, you had to: 1) click on the file's icon, 2) access the SHOW INFORMATION item from the FILE menu, 3) change the file attribute to READ and WRITE, and 4) delete the file by dragging its icon to the trash can. If you wanted to delete more than one READ ONLY file, you were in for quite a time. With the UIS, if you try to delete a READ ONLY file you will get a prompt that asks if you want to proceed. If you say OK, zap, the file is gone. Now, I use the READ ONLY feature on files because I know it's easy to trash the files using the UIS. The UIS also lets you create and delete folders from within any application that uses the FSEL. The latest version of Atari WordPerfect gives you this option instead of forcing you to use the stupid WordPerfect file selector (yes, it is stupid). Wrap Up I have spent a lot of time tweaking my ST to get the most out of it. I have installed utilities like QSTAUTO and FATSPEED to improve system performance and I guess I could look at a 16 MHz 68000. However, productivity is not judged just by how fast a computer will run a single application. Instead, productivity is heavily dependent on software integration, the ability to move information between applications and the ability to move between applications quickly and effortlessly. If you get yourself multiple megs of memory, Revolver, Neodesk, and the UIS, you cannot help but improve your productivity on your Atari ST. You will hear a lot of PC enthusiasts bragging about the 33 MHz '386 machines that are out and the multitasking environments they support. Big deal, so they can run a bunch of unrelated codes with totally unrelated interfaces and no easy way to port information between them. Load up your multi-meg ST with Revolver, Neodesk, the UIS and Atari's nicely integrated software (the stuff ported from PCs does not count if it has not been GEMified) and you will run circles around the fast '386 box with your 8 MHz Atari ST. Geez, I cannot wait to turn myself loose on a TT to tweak its performance. * * * * * * * * * * COMMAND LINE INTERPRETERS The New Look in CLI's Plain Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce by John Barnes [Reprinted from the October, 1990 issue of Current Notes.] Mouse, Be Gone? Command Line Interpreters (CLI's) are programs that require you to tell your machine what to do by typing out words instead of clicking with the mouse. This is a real "plain vanilla" way of interacting with your machine. To some people, CLI's are a throwback to the days when decks of punched cards steered jobs through mainframe computers in batch operations. CLI's are still the dominant scheme for interacting with many, if not most, computers. UNIX, DEC's DCL (Digital Command Language), and MS-DOS are examples of operating systems that use CLI's for their user interface. CP/M and DCL for DEC's RT-11 operating system are examples of CLI's that work in very limited memory. Good old AtariDOS 2.0 for the 8-bit machines was a command line interpreter, if a somewhat primitive one. SpartaDOS is also a CLI. Those available for the ST are much more powerful, reflecting the greater capabilities of the machines. This review will compare three recent entries in this arena: TUI from Silicon Mountain Software, .ACCess from Rock Digital, and Neodesk CLI from Gribnif. Unlike earlier, now unsupported, products like DOS Shell from Michtron and DO-IT! from QMI, the new generation of shells runs within a resizable GEM window. This gives them a sportier feel, and it makes them easier to get to when they are needed. All can be used either as desk accessories or as stand-alone programs run from the desktop. The freeware Gulam shell program, which does not use a GEM window, is included as a standard for comparing performance and value. While the ST has several reliable CLI's, the Macintosh seems to lack them, a fault that is deeply regretted by some Macophiles. MS DOS users, on the other hand, are often frustrated by the need to type out obscure strings of file names and commands. Atari folks have the best of all possible worlds: freedom of choice. Unfortunately, only a few programs for the ST make full use of this flexibility. A notable example is Tempus, the text editor of choice for many programmers, which is equally comfortable being invoked from a command line or the GEM desktop. The true ST missionary turns his nose up at CLI's because they avoid the use of mice, dialog boxes, drop down menus, and the other trappings of GEM. [Ed: The first time we've ever been called a missionary. -FS] When to Use a CLI A CLI might come in very handy on those days when your mouse is inoperative. Also, people who are more interested in getting work done than in talking about their machines frequently find CLI's useful. There are a number of very fine utility programs and applications that are much more comfortable in a command line environment (See "Atari's Ugly Ducklings" in Current Notes Vol. 9 #5). Tricks like listing a disc directory to a text file or running a complete sequence of tasks without human intervention (batch operations) are bread and butter to power users. Command line procedures are also self documenting, a matter that is vital to software development efforts. Even neophyte users sometimes find the kinds of menus that can be built using CLI's more convenient than WIMP (Window-Icon-Menu-Pointer) interfaces. CLI's are excellent for automating repetitive tasks performed on production computers, which are usually manned by "computer operators." as distinct from "computer users." Millions of secretaries across the land fall into this category. Atari's TOS, like most modern operating systems, has output redirection and piping mechanisms embedded in it that GEM applications do not use, but these are readily accessible to CLI's. These functions are very helpful when stringing together a series of jobs that pass their output from one task to the next. Why Three of Them? Why As DAs? The three products being reviewed here differ somewhat in their approach. They also differ with respect to installation requirements, memory usage, complexity, and capabilities. The idea of a CLI as a desk accessory (DA) gets a mixed reaction from this reviewer. Because TOS does not support "reentrancy" the repertory of commands that can be executed inside a desk accessory window invoked from a running application is pretty limited. Most functions in this class can be executed more quickly and simply using Universal Item Selector, Multifile, or the Little Green File Selector. Few, if any, utility programs of any real value can be launched within a desk accessory that is running under an application. The idea of having the GEM desktop available at the same time as one is running a CLI does, however, have some attraction. There is a public domain desk accessory CLI that is not included in this review because it is simply too buggy to be taken seriously. TUI--A Textual User Interface. TUI comes from James Stamm, a dentist who shares a practice with his wife in Huntington, West Virginia. The Stamms have also built a collection of dBMAN procedures for handling their dental practice. Silicon Mountain Software is a side venture that they have formed to market some utilities that they have found useful over the years. .ACCess. .ACCess started out as a classroom project on the part of Eric Mahurin's work toward a degree in Computer Engineering. The product was introduced commercially at the 1989 WAACE AtariFest. Current Notes staffer, Andrzej Wrotniak, was given a copy at that time. He reviewed it in Current Notes (Nov. '89). There are no major changes to the conclusions of that review. The product is included here because it has to be considered in the broader picture. NeoDesk CLI. This is another effort from the Gribnif Software team, with Dan Wilga doing the programming. In contrast to the others, this program runs as a desk accessory only, and it requires NeoDesk 2.05 to run. Gulam. This program is freeware that I downloaded off the Internet. It was written by Prabhaker Mateti at Case Western Reserve University back in 1988. Gulam is a classical CLI shell. It is a stand alone program which, when it is invoked from the desktop, takes over the user interface completely. Functionality and Performance Table I lists some of the performance characteristics of the CLI's that were reviewed for this project. This table is intended to convey a feel for the similarities and differences between the products. It is not intended as an exhaustive characterization of each of the programs. The meanings of the rows for cost and memory requirements are obvious. The designations in the "version" row indicate the different ways in which the proogram can be invoked. In the case of NeoDesk CLI, the .NTP extension represents a mode, as yet unimplemented, in which the program can be launched directly from the NeoDesk shell. Aliasing is a technique for defining symbolic names to represent more complicated character strings. For example, I use the following alias under Gulam: "alias ed c:\tempus2.prg." This permits me to invoke Tempus to edit an ASCII file by simply typing 'ed file.ext' on the command line. This is a very handy capability, which greatly simplifies the work of using a command line interface. A more limited version of the same thing can be achieved by using the batch processing and parameter passing capabilities (a means of assigning specific values to symbols imbedded in a batch procedure) of TUI, .ACCess and NeoDesk CLI. The "Batch Procedures" capability is fundamental to a CLI, but it is not very useful without parameter passing. A batch procedure is a plain ASCII file containing a series of commands to be executed in sequence. The overall batch processing capability of a CLI is a function of other factors, which will be discussed later. The Command Repertoire of a CLI is defined by the variety of available commands that it makes available to the user. All of the ones listed here provide commands like "dir," "type," "delete," "mkdir" (Make directory), "rmdir" (mkdir's opposite number). Less common ones include "free" (to give the amount of free memory), or "format." This varies greatly from one CLI to another, and buyers are well advised to make sure of what they are getting. Any decent CLI should support the inclusion of Comments in batch files. This makes the files (particularly complex ones) more readable. TUI and NeoDEsk CLI require that comments be placed on separate lines, which somewhat diminishes their value. Control Structures allow the flow of batch processes to be altered in accordance with logical decisions based on the existence or non-existence of conditions. Examples of control structures include "If..Else..Endif" or "While." The importance of this capability is determined by the complexity of the task at hand. Some programs require that Environmental variables be defined. A typical such variable is "path," which specifies a list of paths to be searched when looking for a file. Users of TeX need this capability because it is the means by which the various modules locate their font files. The values of environmental variables must sometimes be changed in midstream, so that "set" and "unset" commands must be used. The importance of this feature is determined by the kinds of programs that the user employs. Any CLI that gives a cryptic message when the user types a command incorrectly posesses poor Error Reporting, as does any program that simply crashes when it is abused. Function Support refers to the range of built in functions that the shell posesses. Examples include "%date" (type out the current date and time) or "%exists" (which checks to see whether a given file is available). History Retrieval refers to the ability to recall previously used command lines. This can save a lot of retyping. When devising batch files it is nice to be able to save a sequence of command lines and edit them up into a permanent procedure. TUI allows the user to view the last three command lines using the arrow keys. Gulam allows the user to scroll through the last 30 or so lines. Given that many of us are poor typists, it is important to have a good scheme of Inline Editing of command lines. The backspace, arrow, and delete keys should have natural meanings in doing this. Good inline editing also facilitates the reuse of recalled commands for slightly different purposes. A CLI that cannot launch applications is useless. One should not expect to be able to do this when the CLI is being used as a desk accessory while a GEM application (the only kind that allows desk accessories) is running. When the GEM desktop is running, any CLI worth its salt should allow the user complete freedom to invoke GEM, .TTP, or .TOS applications. The applications should start up smoothly, run smoothly, and exit gracefully. The two rows of Table I that refer to this characteristic show that the various products differ greatly with respect to this. Since a CLI user is not continuously presented with reminders of allowable actions, it is essential that a CLI provide some amount of Online Help. A simple "?" at the ">" prompt should bring up a list of commands. A statement like "help xxxx" should bring up a brief description of the meaning and syntax for the command "xxxx." To set up conditions to be evaluated by control structures, some means of evaluating expressions must be provided. This requires the use of Operators to connect elements of the expression which may yield arithmentic or Boolean (true/false) values. NeoDesk CLI is the only one of these products that allows the user to access another desk accessory while it is active. This is a nice touch, as it greatly facilitates switching between the CLI and other activities. Parameter Passing is useful when batch files are used as a means of adding new commands to the command language. One could, for example, devise a FORTRAN command by writing a batch script like the following: edit %1.for ! Revise source code f77 %1.for ! Compile it f77l %1 ! Link it rename %1.prg %1.ttp ! Give it a .TTP extension %1.ttp 1 ! Execute it using 1 as an input parameter exit ! Return to the calling shell By typing "fortran progname" in response to the ">" prompt, the user would open the source code "progname.for" for editing, cause it to be compiled, link the resulting module with others to make an executable image, and so forth. This edit, compile, link, execute cycle is usually done over and over again during the development of a program. There is no reason to keep typing the same statements over and over and there is no reason to go chasing the mouse all around the screen to invoke the various pieces. The "!" in the above example represents a delimiter for inline comments. This example also shows how permitting the comments to appear on the command line itself makes the batch file easier to understand. The batch file given in the above example launches .TTP applications and could not, therefore, be run inside any of the desk accessory CLI's while another application is running. If "edit" invokes a GEM application then TUI would not be able to handle the job. .ACCess might be able to handle the job if it did not cause any of the applications to crash. NeoDesk CLI will handle this properly when run outside an application. The job is a piece of cake for Gulam or, for that matter, the old QMI Do-it! shell that I used to love before I got Gulam to work for me. Figure 1 shows the Scroll Window that TUI puts up on the screen. This program does a nice job of handling this window. It is quick and easy to scroll backwards and forwards for a good distance to view text that has rolled off the screen, although I did experience problems with a text file that was more than 80 columns wide. The window resizes quickly and cleanly. .ACCess does almost as well, but its window holds far fewer lines. NeoDesk CLI, on the other hand, erases the contents of the window when resizing, and text that has scrolled out of the window is gone forever. CRTL-S and CTRL-Q can be used to stop and resume scrolling in all four programs. NeoDesk CLI wraps the text rather than letting it go beyond the boundary of the screen. This allows all of the text to be seen, but readability is sacrificed. The Scroll Speed of TUI is really fast, although my use of QUICK ST II may have had something to do with this. This makes the program useful for displaying short text files, although Erich Rosenquist's STeno DA is clearly better suited to this purpose. The scroll speed of .ACCess is so slow as to be nearly unacceptable. User Defined Variables serve the same purpose in CLI scripts as they do in other programming languages. A CLI that supports these gains an extra measure of flexibility with regard to the tasks it can undertake. Documentation is a critical issue for products like these, because they are anything but intuitive to use. Good documentation is well written, logically organized, and easy to use. Topics must be covered in adequate detail, with liberal use of examples. The manual should, in principle, tell the user everything he needs to know about using the product. The documentation for TUI and .ACCess is much too terse, more like a glossary, with one or two line definitions of the commands. It should be easy to find material in the manual. A good table of contents is important. A good index is vital because it also tells the authors much about how well they have covered their material. The table of contents for .ACCess is much too short, especially given the absence of an index. Both of these contain long lists of VT52 escape codes without spelling out why this material is useful or important. The NeoDesk CLI manual is in keeping with Gribnif's tradition of preparing attractive, useful guides. The lack of an index is, however, more serious than the developers believe. A Command Line Interpreter is a programming language. Underlying ideas crop up in several places and it is important to be able to cross-reference them. With Gulam you get what you pay for, except that the document on the disk is well written. Since the entire document is on disk, it is easy to use a text editor to browse around in it (I have aliased "HELP" so that it brings up Tempus with GULAM.DOC in the workspace). This ease of access partly makes up for the lack of an index or a table of contents. NeoDesk CLI provides about 10 interesting examples of files of varying complexity. The other products could benefit from the presence of a few good examples of batch files on their disks. .ACCess and NeoDesk CLI both depart from the established syntactic conventions of existing command line languages to such an extent that the user has trouble getting oriented in the proper way to write batch procedures. Which, If Any, Should I Buy? Given the availability of other non-desk-accessory CLI's, none of these ranks as a "must have" product. If NeoDesk CLI were a slightly more polished program, it would be an obvious choice. Its poor handling of the text window is a serious, but easily remediable, drawback. Its history recall function also needs improvement. It is a memory hog because it requires that the outer NeoDesk shell be locked into memory all of the time. This should not be a problem for people with expanded memory. NeoDesk CLI is clearly a promising, if not yet mature, product. I am keeping an eye on it for a future purchase. Those people who are not now using NeoDesk and who do not want to shell out $60 or so for NeoDesk and NEO-CLI should recognize that TUI and .ACCess are both flawed in ways that make them difficult to recommend. The minor benefits to be gained by installing these desk accessories do not outweigh the aggravation. If memory limits are a serious consideration, then forget about installing a desk accessory and run DO-IT! from the GEM desktop. The shell takes up only about 30k bytes, it does the job for most applications, and it is out of the way when it is not needed. This product may be hard to find since QMI has left the scene. Gulam is the CLI of choice for cases where DO-IT! fails. It is possible to save some money by using PD command shell DAs, but my experience with these has not been good. People who have plenty of memory and who insist on having quick access to a CLI shell may be able to achieve this by using Revolver from Intersect to establish a modest memory partition with Gulam running in it. This recipe may fail if any of the user's applications are incompatible with Revolver. For me it is sufficient to have Gulam among my desktop icons in NeoDesk so that I can get to it easily. I find it amusing that ST developers are reinventing this particular wheel at a time when the rest of the world is moving wholeheartedly toward Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) similar to those that ST users have known and loved since the beginning. Putting these things into GEM windows without adding any other functionality amounts to putting chocolate sauce on plain vanilla ice cream and calling the result a hot fudge sundae. Table 1 - Comparison of CLI's ------------------------------------------------------------------ Product: TUI .ACCess Neo CLI Gulam Cost $30 $30 $30? Freeware Memory Requirements 69K 80k 125k+ ~100k Versions DA,.prg DA,.tos DA,.ntp .prg Functionality: Aliasing No No No Yes Batch Procedures Yes Yes Yes Yes Command Repertoire Fair Fair Good Excellent Comments "REM" None? ';' in 1 '#' anywhere Control Structures None Fair V. Good V. Good Environmental Vars No No Yes Yes Error reporting Poor Poor Good Poor Function Support None? Fair Good Good History Retrieval Last 3 Last 1 Last 1 Many Inline Editing Good None? Good Good Launch GEM Appls No Maybe Yes Yes Launch .TOS,.TTP Yes Maybe Yes Yes Online Help Weak Fair V. Good Good Operators No Yes Yes Yes Other DA's NO? NO? Yes N/A Parameter Passing Fair NO? Yes Yes Remains on Desktop No No Yes N/A Scroll Window Good Fair Poor N/A Scroll speed Fast Medium Slow Fast Standardization Fair Fair Good Good User-defined Variables None Yes Yes Yes Window resizing Keeps Keeps Clobbers N/A Documentation: Text Poor Poor V. Good Good Table of Contents Good Poor Good None Index Good None None None Appearance of Docs Poor Fair Good Disk Value of Contents Fair Fair Good Good Usage of Examples Poor Poor Excel. Fair ------------------------------------------------------------------ * * * * * * * * * * HOME ACCOUNTING Pha$ar 4.0 The Best Gets Better Review by John Barnes [Reprinted from the March, 1990 issue of Current Notes.] ANTIC Publishing has released version 4.0 of Phasar, the dominant home accounting package for Atari ST computers. People who have not previously used a home accounting package will find that this remains the best. Current users who wonder about spending the money to upgrade should read on. Back at the dawn of time, in the days of the 8-bit computer, a product named Visicalc revolutionized accounting for those who felt they just had to use a computer to do their checking accounts and taxes. Many people have stayed with that style even though the state of the art in financial management software has advanced a lot since then. Home Bookkeeping 101 Before going into the operation and features of Phasar 4.0, let's take some time to see why it is desirable to do home accounting using software designed for this task. Figure 1 illustrates the complexity of money flow in a firmly middle class American family. The money comes in and the money goes out, stopping for short rests every now and then along the way. The cash flow scenario outlined here is by no means exhaustive, nor does it constitute tax advice. You're on your own with the Feds. Think of each of the little boxes as a place that holds money. Some of them represent sources of income (see the key at the bottom of the drawing). Others represent accounts of one kind or another. The final type of box represents "expenses," money that, once gone, is never seen again. Phasar 4.0 allows, provided you have enough memory, up to 250 slots for accounts and 999 slots for expenses. These are more than adequate for home finance. Accounts The accounts are the focal point of the scheme. I have shown three types of accounts: tax-related, cash, and "phantom." Examples of tax-related accounts include savings accounts, mortgage loans, interest-bearing checking accounts, and the like. These are tax-related because they generate income that must be reported or because they generate tax deductions for those who itemize. Examples of cash accounts include charge accounts, non-interest bearing checking accounts, and the amount of money in your billfold. These are accounts that hold money until it is used for something else. They do not contribute to net worth in the long run. "Phantom" accounts are used as bookkeeping devices to facilitate the process of accounting for the distribution of money. Quite a lot of money is taken out of most paychecks before the recipients ever see them. The drawing takes note of this by establishing phantom accounts to distribute salary income. The entire salary is deposited into this account, then the money is parcelled out to things like taxes, retirement, medical insurance, payroll savings, etc. Each expense is neatly accounted for and that which is left over is deposited to a checking account. The balance in the phantom accounts should always be zero if the distribution has been done properly. Deposits into accounts must come from income sources. Transfers out of an account must generate a matching transfer into the receiving account. Amounts that are disbursed from an account must be allocated to an expense category. Phasar uses these simple rules to make sure that a coherent overview can be maintained in spite of the complexity of the underlying money movements. This linkage between accounts using simple rules is what sets Phasar apart from spread sheets, in which such transfers must be done manually. The first step in setting up a home accounting system using Phasar is to set up the list of accounts to be tracked, including the phantom ones. The screen that Phasar presents the user for accomplishing this is shown in figure 2. Once the slots are assigned the names can be edited for convenience as can the confirmed balance information. The accounts included here roughly correspond to the account boxes shown in figure 1. The "Cash Flow" designation of accounts (Yes/No) is a new feature of Phasar 4.0. This allows the user to segregate interest income and provides a more realistic picture of overall net worth and cash flow. Transactions Deposits, transfers to other accounts, and disbursements are all types of "transactions." Certain transactions occur in a predictable pattern. Paychecks with deductions taken out are received weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Interest deposits occur monthly, quarterly, or annually. Charge accounts, utility bills, and life insurance premiums are paid monthly. It should not be necessary to key in data for such transactions each time they occur, but it should be easy to make minor adjustments to amounts and dates. Phasar's Standard Transaction editing features are quite good. Figure 3 illustrates the editing scheme for a set of standard transactions. The ones shown occur biweekly and are linked to the husband's paycheck. The "Husb Dedns" account is a phantom account that is used to tally the deductions from the husband's paycheck. Note how the "Xfer Out" transactions generate matching "Xfer Into" transactions for the other accounts that the money flows into and through, thus the "Husb Dedns" account should have a balance of zero at the end of each pay period. It is easy to alter these amounts if salary, tax witholding, or other expenses change over time. Figure 4 shows what happens during a typical bill-paying session. Account names, expense categories and income categories are readily available. It is also easy to create new expense and income categories at this stage, so there is no need to be persnickety about setting these up beforehand. Some kinds of expenditures need to be tracked because they must appear correctly on your state or federal tax return. State and local income taxes, home mortgage interest, real estate taxes, child care expenses, medical expenses, and a host of others have been earmarked for special treatment. In cases where the taxpayer does not have to itemize it is still worthwhile to compartmentalize expenses in order to operate on a sensible budget. Figure 4 also shows the flexibility of Phasar 4.0's user interface. The user can move the cursor around with mouse or the arrow keys. Double-clicking on the "Accounts" button brings up the list of available accounts, as does Alt-A from the keyboard. Hitting the "Help" key also brings up a list of choices that is sensitive to the context in which the user finds himself. Ctrl-L from the keyboard brings up a list of available alternative entries for whichever field the user happens to be sitting on. The buttons are new in Phasar 4.0, and they are a big help to the beginning user, even though they diminish the available screen space somewhat. The account balance information at the top of the screen provides a running check so that the user can ensure that his NOW account balance never drops below the level that turns off interest and activates service charges. There is no need to be too fussy about setting up the expense categories beforehand because new ones can easily be added while entering transactions. Phasar provides a facility for viewing and editing all transactions that meet a set of selection criteria based on account name, income category, expense category, and date. Such lists can be sent to the printer or saved in a file. Account Confirmation Given an initial account balance and assuming that all transactions have been properly accounted for, the user of a home accounting package should be able to tell how much money is available in any given account at any given moment. It should be possible to reconcile the calculated account balance with that shown on a statement from a bank or charge card company at the date of the statement. It is easy to play "what if" games to match up the balance reported on an automatic teller machine transaction. Confirming a transaction is a simple matter of placing the cursor on the "Confrm" field and hitting the Return key. Hitting the space bar while in the confirmation field unconfirms a transaction. All previously unconfirmed transactions are available for viewing within a window whose position can be adjusted from the keyboard or a scroll bar. The use of scroll bars for window positioning is another improvement in the new version. Tax Time The handling of tax matters in Phasar 4.0 has also been measurably improved over earlier versions. There is still no provision for importation of external tax forms, but an effort has been made to provide a mechanism that would allow users to exchange tax files. This is through "tax codes." This is useful since Tax Advantage can interpret Phasar's register file (the one containing all of the account and transaction data). As an alternative to the Tax Advantage, a user who plans to disseminate tax forms can devise his own code system (which the manual admits requires time and energy) using some sort of sensible convention for asssigning the names. The tax code assignment is done in Phasar rather than in the PhTax module. Whether this solution leads to widespread dissemination of tax form files remains to be seen. Residents of states like Maryland and Virginia, which make it advantageous to file "combined separate" tax returns, will find Phasar's free-form ability to create new tax forms and tax tables advantageous. The user can also create "tax forms" for other financial calculations, such as cash-flow reports or net worth statements. Creating new tax forms or simply keeping up with the line renumbering that tax form writers perform to frustrate the taxpayer can be a fairly tedious operation. Phasar tries its best to be helpful here. Version 4.0 makes good use of scroll bars in the form editing area as well as adding some buttons for available options. Editing changes are tracked so that the user does not leave anything dangling when changing the contents of a cell in the form. Budgeting The ability to make projections of tax liabilities based on assumptions of income and expenses in a budget makes Phasar a powerful tool for financial planning. Segregating "cash-flow" and "cash" income and expense categories makes it much easier to identify areas where changes can be made. "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure, twenty pounds ought and six, result misery." The above phrase remains as true in our day as it was in Mr Micawber's (for everyone except Uncle Sam, that is). Phasar's interface to its cash-flow analysis and budgeting tools is much improved over the old version. The ability to quickly access all of the transactions for a given category makes it much easier to deal with anomalies, thus greatly improving confidence in the result. Limitations A recent statement by one of the denizens of the InterNet prompts me to remind readers that Phasar is not well suited to use as a financial package for a business, although people who sell services to a small clientele could get away with it. There is no provision for inventory, invoicing, payroll, or any of a number of other things that go into running a business. Look to Beckenmyer Development or High Tech Advisers for such packages. The absence of data import features is also an important limitation because it erects barriers for people who may wish to convert from some other system. It should be a fairly simple matter to write a utility that would convert data from a spread sheet or database to a Phasar register file. It would also be nice to have a merge function so that two separate register files could be combined for couples who track their money separately. In Conclusion Phasar has been a faithful friend to me since it was introduced. I expect to keep using it that way for many years to come. Tom Marks, the author of this program, has expanded it into the IBM and Amiga worlds. The final details of the IBM release are still being worked out with ANTIC, and it is too soon to tell whether the Amiga version will be a success. The competition in the IBM world is pretty stiff. I wish Tom the best of luck. As a beta tester I obtained my copy directly from Tom. The version that I am currently using seems very robust. Other testers report some nagging minor bugs that can be worked around, but these are holding up final release of the new version. Current Notes normally does not publish reviews of products that are in beta test, but we feel that people will want to get started on their 1990 book keeping before they get snowed under. There is said to be a fair backlog of orders for the new version at ANTIC so some people must feel that it is worthwhile to upgrade. My own reaction to the upgrade is that $39.95 is a little steep. The new product is, however, much smoother. Present owners will probably want to upgrade to gain the advantage of the improvements in the user interface, particularly in the query and editing functions. The new version is much more "GEMish," making better use of the mouse than the old version did. As a replacement product it is clear that the new version is significantly better than the old one. It might be possible to pick up a copy of the old version at a closeout price and thereby gain the right to an upgrade. This is worth looking into for someone who really needs to get started on his New Year's resolution to keep better track of his money. * * * * * * * * * * ST TYPESETTING Typesetting with the ST A Tour de Force of the Printer Driver and Fonts Menagerie By Bill Price [Reprinted from the May 1990 issue of Current Notes.] Introduction An endless number of questions from frustrated ST users has driven writing this tour of the printer driver/point sizes, kerning, line leading, font, word processing, desktop publishing morass. For those who have not delved into the world of typesetting and its type faces, point sizes, kerning, line leading, etc., it is a complex subject of differences and incompatibilities. Comparisons with the Macintosh put the lack of ST standards into sharper focus because Mac's designers did things right in the system architecture. Also related to fonts and printer drivers are the functional capabilities of desktop publishing and word processing applications. This is another arena, but it is one that must be preceded by selection of those applications that produce the right quality of typography and support the printer(s) required for publication production. Still another field for a separate tour is the printers themselves. Without delving into this area, let's proceed with fonts and printer driver considerations as the first step in selecting a typesetting application--either desktop publishing or word processing. Unfortunately, competing font and output capabilities and their incompatibilities force you to make a choice. Depending on the choice, the goal of inter-operability may have to be sacrificed. This tour will minimize confusion, and it will help lead to the choices that meet a range of needs in both quality and cost. Essential Capabilities Printer drivers and fonts are essential to every software application that purports to produce typeset quality. With the onset of desktop publishing, high quality fonts, a wide variety of styles and sizes, and multiple printer drivers became fundamental to word processing, desktop publishing, and other high quality presentation applications. The more you use both ST and Macintosh software, the more you will appreciate, even tout, the Macintosh architecture and the way it handles printer drivers and fonts. They are unified with the system and compared to the ST, incompatibilities are almost non-existent. There are two types of printer output capabilities for text: Monospaced, ROM-based fonts internal to the printer. Proportionally spaced graphic fonts from disk or ROM-based fonts. Text files produced for output with a printer's internal fonts, can also be converted or imported to desktop publishing systems for styling and production of typeset copy. However, most ST publishing applications do not provide the reverse facility to filter a file, containing typesetting styles and formats, and produce neutral, ASCII text. Since most desktop publishing or word processing files with imbedded type styles and formats cannot be exchanged with other applications, this capability to produce neutral and interchangeable ASCII text files can be important. For example, you may wish to take an article that has been typeset for publication and upload it as a text file to GEnie or Compuserve. For fonts generated internally by printers, those produced by the HP DeskJet and laser printers are superior in quality to those from 9 or 24-pin dot matrix printers. At 300 lines per inch, the DeskJet and laser output is comparable to daisy wheel copy with the added capability of producing graphics. Also related to internal printer fonts are plug-in font cartridges for the HP and compatible laser printers that give proportional spaced output of typeset quality. However, only ST Word Perfect currently provides support for these cartridges. Most of the ST's publishing systems use disk-based or soft fonts that are produced on the printer as graphic images. These proportionally spaced graphic fonts generated by software include: 1. GDOS 2. Ultra Script 3. Compugraphic/Calamus 4. PageStream 5. PostScript Mono and Proportional Spaced Mono spaced and variable or proportionally spaced font output are substantially different. Most output from a printer's built-in ROM fonts is monospaced with either 10, 12, or 17 characters per inch, and each character occupies a fixed amount of horizontal space regardless of its width or body size. Excepting publishing applications, most programs display characters on the monitor in fixed space at 10 pitch or ten characters per inch. GDOS and other typesetting programs are different in that horizontal space occupied by characters is proportional to their widths. For example, the small letter "i" will occupy less than 20 percent of the horizontal space required for a capital "M." To achieve this variation and proportionality, GDOS and other type faces are output to the printer as graphic images of the characters. Because of variations in character spacing, text produced with graphic font applications has no relationship in line length to text produced with the printer's fixed space fonts. If a GDOS file, as viewed on the screen, could be produced using the printer's internal monospaced characters, the line lengths would vary widely leaving substantial ragged right edges. Some typeset lines with many wide characters such as "M," "W," "O" etc. would probably, in comparison, be broken into two lines of monospaced print. And other lines with narrow characters like "i," "I," and "t" would be much shorter in length. Furthermore, graphic fonts can be varied in vertical height or point size where monospaced printer fonts are usually produced at a constant 6 lines per inch in roughly 12-point size. With points measured on a basis of 72 per inch, typeset characters can vary in height from 4-points to well over 200. Variable spaced graphic fonts and internal monospaced printer fonts are two separate worlds of output. There are no relationships between line lengths, even when margins are the same. And depending on differences in point size or height, there will be no relationship in the number of lines per page. GDOS applications could be furnished with monospaced screen fonts to represent output comparable to that of the printer's built in 10 pitch character sets, but only one of these applications, the new version of Word Up, currently provides this capability. Since "typewritten" output cannot be produced by other GDOS applications, these otherwise excellent featured programs may be limited for some users. Incompatibilities Printer driver and graphic font incompatibilities between GDOS-based applications, Page Stream, Calamus, etc., present ST users with a variety of unique but mutually exclusive choices. The ST is basically akin to the IBM DOS world in this respect. Most every application program must have its own printer drivers and fonts, and these drivers will not work with other applications. If ST Writer has an HP Desk Jet driver, and 1st Word does not, the ST Writer driver cannot be used with the latter. Printer drivers are unique to each application! The same incompatibilities do not exist between the various GDOS-based applications. Fonts and printer drivers furnished with one application should be usable by others, and should is emphasized. But the low graphic quality of GDOS fonts and the lack of point sizes and different font families present limitations to production of publication quality output. The tragedy of GDOS applications like ST Microsoft Word, Word Up and Word Flair is that they can only produce GDOS graphic font output--they cannot send a text file to the printer and use the printer's built-in ROM fonts for output. Therefore these systems, excepting Word Flair, are not usable for normal "typewritten" printing where the printer's internal fonts can be more acceptable than those produced by GDOS. ST Architecture Despite its Mac-like interface, the ST handles fonts and printer drivers much like the IBM PC. These resources are provided with each application, not by DOS or TOS. Outside graphic applications like NEOchrome and DEGAS., early generation software for the ST relied on the standard 10 pitch font for monitor display, and applications developers simply supplied a printer driver to transmit the appropriate ASCII character codes and format controls to the printer. Dominant printers in the market were the Diablo 630 daisy wheel, and compatibles, and the Epson dot matrix; so most drivers were written for these output devices. An important distinction, compared to a Macintosh, is the uniqueness of printer drivers and fonts to each ST application. Macintosh Architecture In the Macintosh scheme, printer driver and fonts are installed as system resources. Drivers, similar to Control Devices (CDEVs), are placed in the System Folder, and fonts are installed as an integral part of the system with Font/DA Mover. On the Macintosh, part of the operating system resides in ROM as hardware, and part resides as disk-based software that is loaded into RAM on boot-up. When fonts or desk accessories are installed in the disk-based part of the system, they are written to the system file and become an integral part of the software. Printer drivers and fonts, on the Macintosh, are available from this disk loaded part of the system to all applications as a central, shared, system resource. Very few applications require their own printer drivers, and only a few specialized typography or graphics programs have their own fonts. Since most applications software is written to access the printer and font resources from the system, Apple supports development standards, and applications programmers rely on these standards for this shared access. On first appearance, you may be impressed that this simplifies software development, but on further consideration the simplicity and ease presented to the user also becomes profound. It's almost a no-hassle operation for font selection and printing. Necessity for Standards Initially, Apple provided its own Imagewriter and Laser Writer drivers with the system along with Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco fonts, used for screen displays. Because there were standards for installing and accessing these resources, third party developers began to furnish other printer drivers and fonts--notably high quality PostScript fonts from Adobe Systems for use by desktop publishing applications. Also, the system is capable of handling two types of fonts--bit mapped and outline. Chicago, Geneva, and Monaco are bitmapped; they are formed by a pattern of dots, pixels, or bits that are mapped onto the screen and printer. Outline fonts are drawn from a set of vector and bezier curve data for each character in a font. To that end, one set of data is used to mathematically scale the output size upward or downward. Fonts can be drawn from 4 point size to over 200 points, and they can be turned to bold or slanted for an oblique representation of italic. But with bit mapped fonts, a separate set of character patterns must be created for each point size required, and with many fonts the size needed is often not available. To that end, GDOS and Macintosh bitmapped fonts are similar. Outline or vector drawn fonts offer more variety in sizes, and with a single set of font data, they conserve disk space. However, drawing and scaling these fonts is process intensive, and for that reason PostScript printers have their own 68000 series processors. PostScript or outline fonts are also device independent and can be produced on any output device--laser printer, plotter, photographic typesetter, film recorder, etc. with a PostScript controller board. On the other hand, GDOS fonts must not only be created for each point size required, separate sets must also be designed for different types of printers such as 9 and 24-pin dot matrix, and 300 line per inch laser printers. Font Processing Make no mistake about having a processor in the printer. Processing either bitmapped or outline fonts for page output is horribly process intensive with many floating point arithmetic calculations. Atari touted its SLM-804 laser printer as a "brainless" solution to printing. They posed the question to prospective buyers, "Why have a computer in your printer when you already have a computer; so let your computer do the processing to drive our low cost laser printer." This approach is seriously flawed. Since drawing high quality outline fonts is process intensive, your computer will be dedicated (stolen) for the printing task. The Motorola 68000 processor operating at 8MHZ is painfully slow for this type of operation. Printing a single page can take up to 9 minutes or longer and during that time your computer is not available. If you are printing a multiple page document, start the job and plan on seeing a movie. And there is an even more severe limitation with the SLM-804. It must be driven through a DMA configured connector, and thus, with its bare-boned structure it is unusable with other computers such as a Macintosh or IBM PC and compatibles. Although Diablo compatible, it has limitations in use with other printer drivers excepting the recently released Laserbrain, which gives Epson compatibility. Atari did introduce a design innovation by driving the printer through a fast 10 megabit per second DMA port. In terms of speed of throughput, it outperforms any printer driven through a parallel or serial port. Enter Destop Publishing Apple teamed with Adobe Systems and Aldus to introduce typesetting and desktop publishing. Computerized typesetting had been introduced more than two decades earlier, but it had been limited to large mainframes, a la IBM-S/360, and expensive photo typesetters like the RCA VideoComp. Many corporations could not justify the high investment. Apple's Laser Writer and its Canon engine dropped the price of an imaging or printing devices from over $500,000 to $6,000. There was also a greater drop from the price of a mainframe to the Macintosh desktop computer. But the key was Apple's graphic based system with a mouse and object oriented execution of program functions. Adobe introduced PostScript fonts that gave a screen representation of the typeset product. The development of PageMaker by Aldus was a direct outgrowth of the Macintosh's graphic and object oriented architecture. It provided a much simpler point-and-click method of applying formats and styles, and with Adobe's fonts displayed on the screen, WYSIWYG or "What You See Is What You Get" was born. Adobe's fonts had a more far reaching market appeal than the technology provided by Apple and Aldus. PostScript became a defacto standard in the industry, and to the credit of Adobe, it provided that standard when no one knew they needed it. Adobe's fonts are high quality representations of the classic fonts used throughout the publishing industry, and these fonts were designed and executed by skilled artisans that are, in their own rights, Renoirs or Rembrandts. The PostScript printing language and PostScript fonts are now just as much a standard as are DOS and Epson printers. The ST's Split Personality When the ST, with its Mac-like interface and mouse operation, was introduced, it became a more logical platform for desktop publishing than an IBM PC with its clumsy and complicated command language. Soft Logik broke ground with Publishing Partner and enlightened Atari to the ST's desktop publishing potential. Fonts and laser printer drivers were needed; so Atari introduced its non-intelligent, "low" cost SLM-804 and Graphic Device Operating System--GDOS. But Atari was trapped between the Mac and PC architectures. The ST became half Macintosh and half IBM PC in its approach to typesetting. GDOS--A Quasi-Mac Approach GDOS was a good but half-baked and ill-implemented idea. The good side was the concept of providing a central system resource for fonts and printer drivers to be shared by all GDOS-based applications. This would entice third party development of richer software, and it would promote sales in a new market niche. The bad part is that GDOS fonts were bitmapped rather than outline or vector drawn like PostScript--a step backward. Fonts not only had to be produced for each point size, they also had to be produced in different resolutions for 9-pin, 24-pin, and 300 line per inch printers. An already borderline concept then deteriorated with implementation. The design and rendering of fonts was hurried and pitiful. Font design is the property of artisans and not technicians or budget compromises; so the implementors of GDOS fonts were constrained in making acceptable copies of existing fonts frequently used by the publishing industry, namely Helvetica (GDOS Swiss) and Times Roman (Dutch). Somehow Atari managed to sell the GDOS concept to several developers, but Soft Logik refused to use it for their original Publishing Partner--the first desktop publishing system for the ST. Timeworks was among the first to follow Atari with its GDOS-based Desktop Publisher. But GDOS had been so poorly implemented by Atari that Timeworks had to develop its own version, and it is different in some respects from other GDOS applications that have followed. Atari's Microsoft Write was also GDOS based. Delayed by development of GDOS, after its introduction it was instantly dropped with no further support. EasyDraw appeared with its improved version and fonts, soon followed by Word Up. Although GDOS fonts and printer drivers can be exchanged between most applications, it is not a copy-the-files and run operation. An installation procedure is required to select the right fonts for the target printer, and screen display. And once installed, different printer drivers cannot be selected from menus inside the application. A new installation must be made. This is another part of the half-baked ST concept. The Macintosh architecture does allow switching between printer drivers using a drop-down Chooser menu. Part of the ST's problem is created by bit-mapped GDOS fonts that are designed for each type of printer resolution. When the system is installed for an application and the type of printer to be used, the driver is selected and companion font files are written to a directory or ASSIGN.SYS file. The selected font files and their drive and folder location are identified by the ASSIGN file. This installation process must be repeated if you wish to use a different type of printer. Not only is this time consuming, it is cumbersome because installation procedures for many GDOS publishing applications are different. Furthermore, only one ASSIGN.SYS file can be in the root directory of a hard disk; so if you are operating from hard disk and want to use multiple applications such as Timeworks Desktop Publisher, Easy Draw, Touch Up, Word Up or Word Flair, or if you want to use more than one printer with any application--each requiring its own ASSIGN.SYS-you have chaos. GDOS Solutions CodeHead was first to address this problem with GDOS+ Plus which allows installation of multiple ASSIGN.SYS files for different applications as well as printers. This utility requires each file to be renamed to avoid conflicts, e.g. DTP.SYS, EASY.SYS, W_UP.SYS, etc. When the hard disk is booted, GDOS+ Plus presents a menu for selection of the SYS file to be used. If you subsequently want to switch to another program or printer, the system must be rebooted and the appropriate SYS file selected. Applications will not load if they can't find their SYS file. These gyrations simply underscore the GDOS morass that must be hurdled and then only to achieve an output that is on the low end of quality. ST Applications and Fonts: GDOS Applications If higher font quality from GDOS applications such as Timework's Desktop Publisher, Word Up, and Word Flair is desired, Imagen has provided an interface with Ultra Script, producing PostScript like output. Furnished with the Ultra Script program and fonts is a PRINTER.SYS file that can be installed with these GDOS applications. Associated screen fonts represent those available on a LaserWriter PostScript printer and include Times, Helvetica, Avant Garde, Bookman, New Century Schoolbook, and Palatino. In an application such as Desktop Publisher, these fonts will be displayed on the monitor as a document is being prepared. When PRINT is selected, instead of directing output to the printer, the document is saved to disk as an EPS file. This type of file, like those saved from Page Stream and those ported from Macintosh applications, can then be printed with the Ultra Script program to produce high quality copy. PageStream The failure of GDOS has led to confusion in the ST marketplace. The fact that Adobe provided a viable standard with PostScript still hasn't been discovered by Atari, but the weakness of GDOS was readily recognized by Soft Logik and avoided because it did not produce the ease of use and quality desired. Soft Logik instead furnished its own fonts and drivers with Publishing Partner and its upgraded successor, Page Stream. Although not the quality of Adobe's PostScript fonts, those for Page Stream are better than any of the various GDOS renditions. And to Soft Logik's credit is the keen insight to support PostScript. Their printer and screen fonts are facsimiles of Adobe's standard PostScript fonts used in the Apple Laser Writer. They can be printed in reasonable quality to a non-PostScript printer, or Page Stream can print directly to a PostScript or compatible device. Unlike GDOS, different printer drivers can be selected from within Page Stream. These features give an advantage over other ST desktop publishing systems. Calamus Calamus introduced new fonts with its powerful desktop publishing system embracing features and capabilities not found in other systems--ST, PC, Sun, or Macintosh. But perhaps it is too powerful. Feature rich is the companion of complexity in use, and sometimes software power is equally demanding of users' cerebral energy. The fonts for Calamus are a substantial leap in quality above those of Page Stream, and they push GDOS off the quality comparison score chart. Within weeks, a PostScript printer driver will be available to put Calamus on a par, in this respect, with Page Stream and Fleet Street 3.0. However, fonts and printer drivers are unique to Calamus and cannot be used by other applications. Calamus is introducing a plethora of superb fonts from Compugraphic. This company has been around for a long time in the business with small scale phototypesetters to support medium size graphic and publishing organizations. Within the past few years, it has teamed with Agfa in Germany and has begun support of digitized or laser image fonts. Compugraphic is a major competitor to Imagen; it knows what it is doing, and it produces fonts of graphic arts quality. These fonts are based on an outline technology like Post Script. Compugraphic fonts are a close contender to Post Script in quality, with Imagen's Ultra Script coming in a tight next. Compugraphic could provide the central system resource in fonts and drivers for the ST. UltraScript Imagen has entered the ST and IBM markets with its PostScript clone. Ultra Script is disk based software that processes and interprets PostScript output in the same manner as the ROM interpreter in an Apple Laser Writer. It is a full PostScript language interpreter clone with printer drivers and its own set of fonts that are reasonable quality representations of the standard Adobe PostScript fonts included with the Laser Writer Plus and II series. But they are not identical. There are differences in the slight detail and nuances that give a font its character and personality. Where Adobe may use a slight taper to match the original design, the same Ultra Script font may use straight, parallel lines that produce more sterile appearing characters. But make no mistake, Imagen is a serious contender in electronic publishing, their fonts are high quality, but their font library is not as extensive as that from Adobe. Ultra Script, at the moment, is a stand-alone PostScript interpreter program with printer drivers that can be used to process Encapsulated Post Script (EPS) files and produce output on a laser printer comparable to that from a Laser Writer. These types of files can be produced with Page Stream by saving an EPS file to disk rather than printing it. As noted for GDOS applications, Ultra Script's PRINTER.SYS will produce similar output files. The same types of files can also be produced with Mac applications running under Spectre GCR on the ST. Also, Mac EPS files can be ported over to the ST using Doug Wheeler's Transverter and then printed with Ultra Script. Ultra Script processes fonts as well as EPS graphics. An EPS file is an ASCII text file containing a set of PostScript instructions that specify what fonts are to be used, spacing, and format, and how graphics are to be drawn. In some respects, a PostScript file is like a LOGO program, although LOGO is extremely simple by comparison. All files used by Ultra Script must have a PS extender to be recognized by the program. When it is executed, several EPS files can be loaded into a selector box. And unlike GDOS, printers and resolutions can be selected from drop down menus--printer and font installations are not required. Once selections are made from the menus, typeset output with Ultra Script fonts is produced on non-Post Script printers. Ultra Script currently supports the Atari SLM-804, HP DeskJet, HP Laser Jet, NEC, and Epson printers. Fleet Street Publisher Fleet Street Publisher has re-emerged with new features and improved output support. The quick demise of its first version can be attributed in part to its abysmally poor fonts and print quality which made the system undeserving of the name Publisher. The quality differed little from that produced by NEOchrome and DEGAS. The new version includes the Ultra Script interpreter/printer drivers and fonts as an integral part of the program so that PostScript clone printing is a one-step process internal to Publisher. This is a significant improvement by the developers at Fleet Street and by Imagen. It gives ever so near PostScript printing quality from what is closer to the concept of a system resource. This is the type of architecture that Atari should be supporting and promoting with Page Stream, Calamus, Word Up, Word Flair, etc. Instead they are off on another tangent with Desk Set. DeskSet Some years ago, while promoting GDOS, Atari decided to stake out its position in the desktop publishing market with its own software system. This would seem to be a dangerous strategy of direct competition to third party software developers that are so essential to supporting Atari's hardware. However, the danger is minimized because Atari has a track record of half-baked solutions, almost non-existent marketing, and discontinuance of support after a product is introduced. Developed by G.O. Graphics, DeskSet has been an expensive system in the IBM PC market for some years, but it has not even been a minor contender in the desktop publishing arena. Extensive searches in available literature fail to identify many reviews, and it is also absent from many of the articles comparing desktop publishing software for the PC . The only explanation for Atari pursuing this relationship is that it was viewed from a bookkeeping rather than a leadership mentality. Marriages between marginal partners, thinking that they can help each other, have seldom, if ever, produced excellence. So far, DeskSet has not received reviews of acclaim. It has introduced yet another variable in the ST market which is in desperate need of a standard. With Atari's notoriously poor marketing record, it may disappear as quietly as it appeared. It will probably follow the instant introduction and demise of Atari's Microsoft Write. Atari seems to set a limit on software investments and does not follow through by correcting flaws and adding enhancements. SPECTRE GCR Alternatives: The Future of PostScript One of the most exciting developments is the recent introduction of Adobe Type Manager (ATM) for the Macintosh. Adobe has fared well with its defacto PostScript standard, but predictably its greed would lead to its downfall in position. PostScript has been hardware based in that the interpreter software is ROM resident in printers. The interpreter is written for operation with a Motorola 68000 series processor. Licensing fees have been substantial, ranging up to $200,000 with quarterly royalties on sales. PostScript has become such a valuable standard that virtually every laser printer supplier, ranging from QMS and Qume up through IBM, DEC, and Wang have paid the price to join. Hewlett-Packard, the lone hold out over the past five years, finally joined in 1989. Additionally, typesetting device manufacturers like Linotron, Compugraphic, and Varityper have also become members of the PostScript community, and plotter manufacturers are now following this standard. But for the smaller 300 x 300 line desktop laser printers, PostScript capability has added around $2500 to the price tag--part hardware costs but a major part in royalties and amortization of licensing fees. History has clearly demonstrated that a good product, at egregious prices, not only invites but begs to be cloned. Foremost examples are the IBM PC and Epson's printers. With PostScript, it was only a matter of time. Phoenix technologies and Conograph, already at the forefront of PC hardware cloning, were among the first to attack. There have been so many clones that it is now difficult to compile a comprehensive list. In fact, a laboratory has been established for voluntary certification that cloned PostScript interpreters do perform properly in executing all the PostScript commands. This certification is similar to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or Underwriter Laboratories (UL) blessing. It demonstrates the recognition that PostScript has achieved a standard to be complied with as well as cloned. But the shot heard round the world came from Apple when it sold its Adobe stock and announced it was teaming with Microsoft to introduce a new Royal Font technology with System 7.0. Apple will provide the fonts (called TrueFonts), and Microsoft will provide the interpreter and printer drivers for True Image. Furthermore, the architecture will be open and not license fee and royalty burdened. Microsoft's position in this marriage comes from its development of OS-2 and Presentation Manager for the IBM PS-2, and its acquisition of a small company that has cloned Post Script to produce the enhanced version as True Image. Apple's drastic move pushed Adobe to the wall, and at a desktop publishing conference in late 1989, its president challenged Apple and Microsoft. Underscoring that Adobe had consistently supported and enhanced an excellent working product for over 5 years, the contenders were characterized as "all talk" and were challenged to "put up or shut up." Subsequently, Adobe Type Manager was released as an effort to retain the market lead. But make no mistake about the future of PostScript. Adobe may shrink in revenue but PostScript will continue to live like DOS, and it will be supported in the IBM, NeXT and Macintosh market places. The world's first and second largest computer manufacturers, IBM and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), have recently announced that they will incorporate Adobe's PostScript throughout their product line from PCs to mainframes. When Apple introduces its new laser printers with True Image, they would be foolish if PostScript support or compatibility were abandoned. The new interpreter will probably handle both technologies. ATM--PostScript on a Disk ATM is disk-based PostScript interpreting software that runs on a Macintosh computer or on an ST with Spectre GCR. Unlike the Ultra Script clone, which can process PostScript graphics as well as fonts, ATM can only handle PostScript fonts with Adobe's Type 1 encryption used for hinting. Type 2 and 3 fonts from other providers, like Image Club, and Cassady, can't be processed. But ATM, although a subset of the PostScript interpreter, is still a valuable asset with Spectre GCR. It offers two new facilities. Adobe printer fonts can now be displayed on the screen to replace the ragged bitmapped screen versions. This is, in effect, the much talked about Display PostScript used by NeXT and originally promised with Presentation Manager. ATM gives a much truer WYSIWYG display, but more importantly, high quality fonts can be output and produced on non-PostScript laser printers. The quality is excellent--comparable to that from a Laser Writer II--and even the HP Desk Jet can be used for output that is equal in quality. This is significant for reasonable cost typesetting. But there is a downside. Recall that drawing and scaling fonts is processing intensive, and with the ST's 8 MHZ 68000, output is painfully slow--over 9 minutes per page. But so is the output from Calamus, Page Stream, and GDOS applications. They are not as slow, perhaps, but they are no speed champions. With PostScript interpreting performed inside the computer, printer speed is not a factor, and to appreciate the process bound nature of font drawing, run ATM on a Macintosh SE-30 or IIci with their 68030 and Math Coprocessor. The output is incredibly faster. The same throughput rate is demonstrated by the LaserWriter II NTX which also uses a 68030 with its on-board PostScript controller. The time lost on the ST computer to this printing process illustrates the viability of an intelligent printer over the SLM-804. Despite the output speed, ATM with Spectre GCR on the ST is a clear winner in print quality. PostScript Clones PostScript clones offer another alternative for the ST. Unfortunately, most were developed for use in the PC environment and consist of boards that fit into PC card slots. Only a few can be used with the ST. Pacific Data has taken a different approach with design of their Pacific Page cartridge that plugs into an HP LaserJet II or compatible. Both the cloned PostScript interpreter and fonts are contained in ROM like the Apple Laser Writer, and the cloned fonts from Bitstream are of high quality. The printer must have at least 1 MB of RAM to support interpreting and layout of an entire page. Pacific Data's new entry is Mac Page, scheduled for release in the second quarter of 1990. This cartridge, for the Laser Jet, will come with supporting utility software, fonts, and printer drivers. The driver works through the serial port and doesn't require AppleTalk. The cartridge is also usable on PC DOS platforms and will probably replace Pacific Page. Features such as shading, font rotation, shadow and 3-D effects, text spirals, etc. may give more versatility in type placement than is available from other vendors. Recently, Hewlett-Packard announced that true Adobe PostScript will be supported on the Laser Jet III, IID and low cost IIP printers. Controller boards in the II, Plus, and older printers cannot be used with the new cartridge. The Laser Jet III uses the same Canon SX engine as in the Laser Jet II, but the controller board and case have been redesigned, and significant, new capabilities have been added. HP has a new font language that enhances printing to give it the appearance of 600x600 resolution on a 300 line per inch printer. With the new controller board, an Apple Talk interface, Epson emulation, and an Adobe PostScript cartridge are being offered as accessories. Recently, Apple and Microsoft indicated they will supply a True Image interpreter cartridge with True Fonts. This makes the Laser Jet III very versatile and attractive for the ST world. Under the Macintosh Operating System, a PostScript printer driver cannot be selected unless Apple Talk is present. But a new interface box, that emulates Apple Talk, has been developed and may be marketed soon to augment Spectre GCR. This is not needed with native ST software since applications like PageStream can directly drive a PostScript printer. The Choices In summary, GDOS fonts fall at the bottom of the list in quality of rendition, and they are limited in point sizes and variety of fonts. GDOS fonts are inadequate for high quality publications. However, GDOS may be acceptable for club newsletters and in-house organs. Although there are rumors of a new GDOS outline font system that will be similar to the vector drawn fonts used by PostScript. It is doubtful that Timeworks Desktop Publisher will be upgraded to use this capability. Only the newer software like Word Flair and perhaps Word Up will be revised to take advantage of the new system. But at issue will be quality of the fonts. The success of Outline GDOS will depend on how many developers elect instead to adopt Ultra Script and retrofit their software for this already PostScript like system. Several notches above GDOS are the fonts provided by Soft Logik and other suppliers of fonts for Page Stream. They are better quality than GDOS fonts but fall below PostScript, Ultra Script and Compugraphic fonts for Calamus. Page Stream offers the advantage of PostScript output and this puts it in the real world of publishing quality. Available from Soft Logik is a disk of PostScript screen fonts that give the appropriate WYSIWYG screen display and produce the correct font identifications to drive a Laser Writer or other PostScript compatible printer. Although not tested, the Pacific Page cartridge should operate with Page Stream's Post Script output to make it the least costly application for high quality publishing. Ultra Script falls next to Compugraphic and PostScript in quality. Although it is currently a separate printing utility, it has been integrated with Fleet Street Publisher 3.0, and the imaginative developers of Word Flair have indicated that it will be integrated into a new release as well as their Professional version. Ultra Script could very well become what GDOS was intended to be--a central, shared system resource of fonts and printer drivers with output quality superior to that of GDOS. Imagen should take the initiative to work with active ST software developers and implement this much needed capability and standard. An outboard Ultra Script box, used as an interface and processor between the ST, SLM-804 and other printers, would be an astounding development. With the Ultra Script interpreter and fonts in ROM, and with an outboard processor, the ST would be released from its shackles as a printer server. By Default If these conflicts, incompatibilities, and deficiencies aren't satisfactorily sorted out within the next 6 to 12 months, ATM and Macintosh emulation with the Spectre GCR may well be the final ST solution for high quality typesetting. ATM produces PostScript output to high resolution printers such as the HP DeskJet, HP LaserJet II and IIP, and compatibles like the excellent Brother HL-8e. Mac applications like Page Maker and Ready, Set, Go! are much richer in features, polish, and ease of use than similar applications on the ST. Even the new Mac Write II, with the ability to incorporate graphics like the preceding powerhouses, offers rich word processing features. Screen refreshes are also faster and smoother with Macintosh software, and a major feature not found in ST desktop publishing applications is automatic screen scrolling when dragging the cursor to the right or bottom edge of the screen. Adobe's PostScript fonts are expensive, but they do offer the best in quality and a variety of standard type faces essential to publishing. Coupled with an HP Desk Jet Plus, which is now being offered for $450 after factory rebate, this is a superb, reasonable cost solution. However, the best in quality is still a true Adobe PostScript printer, if you can afford the cost. They are dropping in price, but the only ST software, at the moment, that can take advantage of these printers is Soft Logik's Page Stream. Typeset Quality On the Spectre/Macintosh side, the Apple Talk box or emulator, under development, will allow connection of a Laser Writer or other AppleTalk/PostScript printer, so that it will interface with the Macintosh Operating System. At present, the only way output can be produced is to upload or dump an Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file through the serial port to the printer. This is the same two step process used with Ultra Script. With an Apple Talk emulator, Specter GCR will give the ST full PostScript capabilities. Printed output continues to be one of the major uses and even reasons for many computers. If publication or typeset quality is desired, the first step in selecting the right software is to define output requirements with respect to quality, type sizes, styles, and font variety. Compare samples of the fonts and sizes. Type should be crisp, smooth on curves and diagonals, well shaped and proportioned with sharp edges. Examine typeset copy for character spacing and the look of italic and bold faces. Italic should look that way and not as an awkward oblique or mathematically slanted representation. Various software packages can then be assessed as to how well their functional features for styling, formatting, and text editing support these requirements. Normally, the next step would be to select the hardware that can be used as a platform for the software that best meets your requirements; but since most of us have already chosen the ST, that decision has already been made. However, there is a bonus with the ST that comes in the form of Macintosh emulation with Spectre GCR and IBM PC emulation with pc ditto II, PC Speed, and PC Supercharger. Macintosh software and ATM offer the highest quality and flexibility across these three platforms. The PC option should only be considered if compatibility, features, and familiarity with Ventura Publisher are essential. Page Maker operating in the PC environment does not match the speed and ease of use on the Macintosh. The Final Solution? Perhaps the ST, with its native software and emulators, gives more options and greater flexibility than these other platforms in meeting a range of needs. High quality fonts are expensive, but competition is lowering prices. GDOS fonts are, for the most part, free. The price is a reflection on the investment in development. Page Stream fonts are in the $25-$30 range. Ultra Script and Calamus Compugraphic fonts range from $50 upward in sets. Basic PostScript fonts are built into compatible printers, and additional font families range in cost from $65-$150. Most fonts are discounted and specials are beginning to appear. The most economical approach, if slowness in printing can be tolerated in exchange for the savings, is Ultra Script with an HP Desk Jet Plus. Your investment will be rewarded with high quality typeset copy that will favorably compete with the other options. For those who can afford the versatility, inter-operability, and quality, the new HP Laser Jet III gives the universal answer. This printer can be used with Laser Jet or Epson printer drivers as well as PostScript and True Image. It will process GDOS as well as typewritten output using HP's internal ROM fonts. Since competition forces you to choose sides, this gives an all encompassing answer that cuts across the incompatibilities. It will work with the ST, IBM PC, and Macintosh platforms and their companion software. * * * * * * * * * * * VIRUSES Such Things Don't Happen to Nice People What to Do If You Got a Virus ??? By J. Andrzej Wrotniak [Reprinted from J. Andrzej Wrotniak's "ST Toolbox" column in Current Notes, September, 1990.] As you may know, in my free time (what is left after slaving 40 hours a week as the most underpaid employee of a Beltway Bandit company) I also write Atari ST programs, trying to sell a copy a week or so through my partner from Debonair Software in Utah. Well, writing math and astronomy software for our favorite machine is not where the money is, but it is a nice personal experience with all those people writing you letters concerning your programs and hundreds of other topics. Just last week Mr. Curtis Schweitzer from North Dakota sent us an alarming letter: a virus had been discovered on our Star Base distribution disk! After a lengthy phone conference with my partner 2000 miles away (AT&T will soon start sending me roses!), we decided that she would stop shipping for a few days, while I investigated the problem. And here we come to the first principle of dealing with a virus: Do not panic! Obviously, we have been living with the critter for at least a month, maybe longer. Whatever harm could be done, is done. But so far, we have not noticed anything wrong in our systems. Maybe the virus is a harmless kind, maybe our customer mistook the PC-DOS boot sector for a virus. Let us get a cup of black aromatic coffee, boot the computer (virus or not) and in- vestigate. First of all, do not panic. Let me admit: my hands-on experience with computer viruses is nil. I have never seen one: "those things do not happen to nice people." I cannot tell a FAT sector from a boot vector, and I do not do (among other things) 68000 machine language. Luckily, I know of someone who has got all that I am missing. Enter Mr. George R. Woodside from California, the author of the highly acclaimed Virus Killer program. I have seen his VKILLER.PRG on GEnie and Compuserve, and I have heard many good things about it, but I have never bothered to get myself a copy. Well, this may be just the right time. Through a brief search through the utility download area on GEnie, I discover that the most recent available version of Virus Killer is 3.11, uploaded last February. There is also Hospital, a set of anti-virus utilities, written by Mr. Neil Forsyth from Great Britain. And finally, a program known as Super Virus Killer (or VKILL.PRG), from MUG UK is also available in the public domain. Before going into any details of these programs, let us have a short, and somewhat simplified, refresher course--Virology 101. What Is a Computer Virus? A virus is a computer program that will spread (i.e. make additional copies of itself on your disks) by itself, without any help from you. Usually, you are not even aware that the virus is active in your system until it is too late, that is, until the virus starts doing something other than just multiplying itself. The simplest kind is a boot sector virus. As you may already know, the first sector on a floppy is devoted to system purposes. It may contain a very brief program (not shown in the directory!) that the system will execute when booting up immediately after your computer is powered on, even before the auto folder programs run, and before GEM is installed. On the Atari ST, the boot sector is usually left almost empty. The more recent versions of TOS (1.4 and 1.6) format disks with the so-called PC-DOS boot sector, required by IBM PCs and clones to be able to access our disks. The ST does not use this information. An ST game disk may have a boot sector with a simple program which does just one thing: executes the game itself from the disk file. This is how many auto-running games work. If the boot sector of the floppy you have in drive A contains a virus--whether you boot up from a floppy or a hard drive does not matter--the virus does, at first, just one thing: installs itself in memory. It can be there as a background program, self-contained and watching what is going on, or it can replace one of the system routines, usually a disk access function. The second approach is, I believe, more common. For example, when the program you are running, or the GEM desktop, needs to read the disk directory, an instruction to "go to a routine whose address is at location so-and-so in memory" is executed. In other words, it looks to "so-and-so" to find the vector pointing to where the directory-accessing code is stored. Upon bootup, many viruses modify this vector so that it points to the virus-installed code. The latter does whatever it was programmed to, and then executes the routine your program was asking for, so you don't notice any difference. Thus, each time you execute an innocent disk-access routine, you really wake up the virus! Remember, the main activity of a virus is spreading itself. Therefore, its actions always include copying itself into boot sectors of any accessed disks. Anything else is secondary, and varies from breed to breed. Known Viruses on the ST. As far as I know, all viruses presently identified on the Atari ST belong to the boot sector class. They are also quite benign: the only real harm they do is spread themselves by overwriting the boot sectors of any floppies they can access. For most purposes this is pretty harmless, as the boot sector is usually ignored by our machine. You can be hurt only by trying to access an auto-run game disk while the virus is in memory: the auto-executing boot sector on your game disk is replaced with the virus itself. This is not a common case, however, as usually you load the game disk with the computer off and boot directly from it. Remember, a virus cannot survive a cold reset of your computer! The most common ST virus is known as the Key, Type 1, or the Signum virus. It does nothing but spread itself, unless it encounters a special "key" disk. Then, the virus will execute a program from that "key" disk, whatever it is. I was not able to find any reports of identified key disks. The other recognized viruses on the ST (about 10 in all, with some sub-strains) are mostly just pranks. Some of them may, after some time in the system, invert the mouse movements (you move the mouse up, and the pointer on screen goes down), some do more or less funny things to your screen, and some include sound effects. One slows your machine down until you have to reboot, and another slowly eats the top and bottom of the screen, one scan line at a time. A British virus, known as Antivirus, gives a brief message upon boot-up and then spreads itself, but only to disks whose boot sectors are empty. It will not mess up your game (or any other) disks. The Antivirus also beeps and blinks the screen if it detects a disk with an executable boot sector (other than another copy of itself, that is). Yet to Come. With time we may see the arrival of uglier, more harmful virus strains on the ST. As I mentioned before, the viruses reported so far are, more or less, harmless pranks (although writing to other people's disks without their permission is certainly not right). There were no reports of any ST viruses attacking hard disk drives. The programmer who wants to impress the world by releasing such a virus deserves to have his kneecaps broken by the Current Notes writers' board (our average is close to 300 pounds per person!), and then be banished to the PC-clone world for the rest of his miserable days. There is another virus family, known as link viruses, that do not live in boot sectors. Instead, they attach themselves to other programs. They are, it seems, more difficult to write, and they can not be detected just by checking the boot sector of a suspected disk. Finally, a hybrid version is also possible: a virus, originally attached to a program, that writes a boot-sector virus on a disk. Again, as of this writing there were no reports of link-type viruses on the ST. (There were some in the PC world, and quite nasty, wiping out the data on hard drives!) Now that we know what all this is about, let us go back to the anti-virus utility programs. The Virus Killer. The Virus Killer looks good, works fine and is easy to use. You really do not need to have any technical knowledge. Everything is explained clearly on the screen in plain English. The program comes with a brief document file, reading of which is not even necessary, at least not for using the basic functions. Run VKILLER.PRG and click on a drive icon on the main screen. Virus Killer checks the disk for the virus and lets you kill the bugger by clicking on another icon, or even install a virus guard on your boot sector. It would be difficult to come up with something easier to use. When Virus Killer detects a virus it knows, it also allows you to view a brief description, again in very understandable terms. If it detects something that could be a virus of a new kind, it lets you know as well, and you can sterilize the disk, too (send a copy to Mr. Woodside, do us all a favor!). The virus guard is written on the boot sector of a floppy. When the computer is booted up (from a floppy or hard drive, as long as the guard disk is in drive A), you see a brief message, and the guard installs itself in memory. It checks the boot sector of any floppy accessed by your computer, and if anything suspicious is detected, the guard beeps and flashes the screen. You may then have to examine the suspect with Virus Killer. For those who like to be more technical, Virus Killer provides some other options, like listing the virus code (or for that matter, any sector on the disk), repairing a boot sector, or copying a suspected virus into a disk file for further analysis (do not be afraid to do it--it is safe, there is no way such a file could autoexecute itself!). Remember: Virus Killer handles only the boot sector viruses, but that is all we need--for the time being, at least. I really feel much better, knowing that Mr. Woodside is fighting this war on our side. His program is competent and easy to use, my personal favorite among the anti-virus tools, and deserves the highest recommendation. A companion program of Mr. Woodside, Flu, is a nice demonstration of how various viruses may show on your computer. It does not install them on your machine, just shows you the results (see picture). The British Rescue. The two British entries mentioned before are also good tools. The Hospital consists of eight programs, most of them to be used from the AUTO folder. They are not as easy to use as the Virus Killer, but some of the options they provide are unique. For example, one of the Hospital programs, Acid Test, will even check whether some of the system vectors have been modified, which gives you some degree of protection from link viruses, if and when they arrive. Another one gives you the ability to check your boot sector against its copy stored in a file. The Super Virus Killer from MUG UK recognizes boot sectors of many popular games and will not flag them as possible viruses. It also allows you to install a variety of nice color effects on your boot sector, which gives you some measure of protection: if you do not see the effects upon boot-up, your boot sector has been altered, possibly infected! You can even use this program to infect a disk with the Antivirus strain (but I would rather not do it, using the Virus Guard from Mr. Woodside's program instead). Go Nuke 'em, Sonny! Back to my own story: using the Virus Killer I checked about 250 floppies from my collection. More than 100 were contaminated with the Signum virus. The process of checking and sterilizing the disks is very fast, as the program has keyboard equivalents for the icon options. With two floppy drives, you wipe the vermin out as fast as you can swap the disks, one every five seconds or less. Oh, well, no harm done--and the virus must have been in my library since January, if not earlier! Just out of curiosity, I have checked about twenty original program distribution disks from various companies. Surprise: six of them had the Signum virus!!! Now, for many years I have adhered to a very strict procedure: the first thing I do with a program distribution disk is write-protect it and make a backup copy. The original stays always protected. This can mean only one thing: all these disks arrived already infected. I must have accidentally booted up with one of them, or a copy, in the A-drive (remember: the boot sector is executed even if you boot up from the hard disk), and there goes the neighborhood! So What Do You Do? So what should you do if you think you have a virus in your disk library? Yes, of course, first of all, do not panic. Remember, the ST viruses are not very harmful, being a result of somebody's irresponsibility rather than ill will. Get a copy of Mr. Woodside's Virus Killer (or even better all the programs I have mentioned above, our Editor has put them on a Current Notes library disk #490), find a couple hours of qquiet time, get yourself a cup of espresso (or a Guinness, or celery juice) and start the hunt. To be absolutely safe, boot up without any disk in drive A. This way there will be no chance for the virus to get into your computer's memory. Then load the disk with Virus Killer and run the program. Keep checking all your disks--this goes really very fast. Identify the disks you may be booting from and install the virus guard on them. If you use a floppy-based installation, it makes sense to have just one boot disk (with a backup, of course) with all the desktop accessories and auto programs. If you boot from a hard drive, any disk with the guard installed will do as a placeholder in drive A. Now you will know if anything tries to penetrate your defences (this was, by the way, how the owner of Star Base detected the virus just after loading the infected disk into his computer). Many thanks to Mr. Woodside, Mr. Forsyth and MUG UK. Thanks also to Mr. Schweitzer who, unwillingly, provoked this article. And happy hunting, everyone! * * * * * * * * * * DESKJET PRINTER DeskJet Revisited An in-depth look at the newer, faster Hewlett Packard inkjet printer -- the DeskJet Plus and some tips on getting the most out of your DeskJet. by Jim Wallace [Reprinted from the December, 1989 issue of Current Notes.] When the original Hewlett Packard DeskJet came out about two years ago, it offered a real "power without the price" alternative to laser printers costing over $2,000. Now, for the first time in history, "the rest of us" could get a printer that could produce typeset quality documents for less than $1,000! This new "inkjet" printer, combined with the right printer drivers, was equal in print quality to laser printers--but that wasn't all! It was whisper quiet, easy and inexpensive to operate, and manufactured by a company famous for its first-class support. Finally, those of us wanting to get on the real desktop publishing bandwagon, but who couldn't afford laser printers or Postscript solutions, were offered something that was within our reach. The Quality Issue In a previous review of the original DeskJet that appeared here in Current Notes some time ago, I said that the print quality of the DeskJet couldn't be beat by a laser printer. I've now been using a DeskJet on an almost daily basis since it was introduced in early 1988, and still find it to be absolutely top notch in every respect. This is especially true since the availability in May, 1989 of the newer and faster DeskJet Plus. Not only has the hardware improved, but the software has improved as well. In fact, the combination of the DeskJet Plus with new, more efficient and faster printer drivers almost triples the speed of the slower, original DeskJet! The speed is so fast that I have no reason to "upgrade" to an Atari laser, especially since I believe that the DeskJet output is actually better than that produced on most laser printers. While the output from 300 dpi devices like the DeskJet and most laser printers is not as good as that produced from very expensive digital typesetters from companies like Linotype and Compugraphic, there is still a huge demand for work produced at 300 dpi. Whichever DeskJet you choose, the price can't be beat! While the list price for the DeskJet Plus is the same as the original DeskJet ($995), the original DeskJet can now be purchased for a list price of $695. While these list prices are the official selling prices, the "street price" of the original DeskJet is now about $495! Problems? The original DeskJet was nearly perfect, but there were a few problems worth noting. Since I had purchased one of the very early "beta" units, I experienced problems when printing solids. Small white lines were sometimes visible across black solid areas, and a faulty priming mechanism was later blamed for the problem. Hewlett Packard, however, quickly replaced my unit with another one that performed perfectly. Also, while the original DeskJet was criticized for being somewhat slow, the beautiful printouts were worth the wait! Additionally, one must realize that "speed" in this case is a relative term. While the original DeskJet was slower than an Atari laser printer (which has a DMA port), the DeskJet was actually faster than the Epson laser printer, and even the Mac/Laserwriter which used the relatively slow Postscript page description language. In any event, my Atari 1040ST and original DeskJet worked great together when combined with the Migragh DeskJet GDOS driver, which was the first graphics driver available for the DeskJet--thanks Migraph! It should also be noted that some users have experienced problems when using the parallel port. This minor problem has to do with an inconvenience in being able to turn the printer on or off under certain conditions. While some have accused Hewlett Packard of design problems in the printer, others accuse Atari of a non-standard parallel port on its computers. This rare problem, however, seems to be caused by a slight mismatch of certain electronic parts relating to occasional bad tolerances of certain components. But, personally, although I've now used three DeskJets connected to two different 1040's as well as my new Mega, I have NEVER had ANY problems of this nature. Additional problems encountered when using certain hardware buffers have also been reported, but I'll talk a little later about my experiences with buffers. Since this article is a follow-up of my original review of the Hewlett Packard DeskJet that appeared in the June 1988 issue of Current Notes, I refer you to that first article for additional technical information about how the DeskJet works, how it compares to a laser printer, basic add-ons available, and other facts about this amazing inkjet printer. I will now discuss the new, faster DeskJet Plus which is now available. If you wish to also read my original 5,000 word review, you can either order a back issue of Current Notes (if available) for $2.00, or you can download the ASCII file from GEnie (filename: DESKJET.ARC). It Pays for Itself! Before I start talking about how great the new DeskJet Plus is, I'd first like to tell you what I use my DeskJet for. Unlike many average users, I had a particular purpose in mind for my DeskJet. Since I've been in commercial printing and graphic arts all of my life, I was especially interested in using the DeskJet as a means to produce "camera ready" printouts for offset printing, which includes both typesetting and artwork. While I had been using a Panasonic 1092 impact ribbon printer for some low-end work, I really needed 300 dpi. And while the DeskJet was still a little too expensive for my limited budget, it was the only printer available that could give me the required resolution for less than $1,000 (I actually purchased my first DeskJet for $795). And purchasing the DeskJet has turned out to be one of the best decisions that I've ever made! Within only a short time after getting the DeskJet, I started promoting my home typesetting business and was surprised that my DeskJet actually paid for itself within just a few weeks! In fact, within a few short months I was making over $500 a week with my Atari 1040ST and original DeskJet, and thus was able to purchase a Supra hard drive, Mega, and lots of other goodies, not to mention the fact that I was(and still am) making a living with my system. In fact, I can't tell you how great it is to own a computer that actually pays-for-itself! But that's really another story, and perhaps I'll write another article on how to make money with your computer in desktop publishing. But for now, let's see why the new DeskJet Plus is even better than the original! The New DeskJet Plus... While the DeskJet Plus looks almost identical to the original DeskJet (a slightly different keypad and a "Plus" label are about the only external differences) its new features are mostly in the form of improved internal hardware. Most important is the much faster Z-180 CPU which has replaced the original, and slower, Z-80 processor. As a result of this new horsepower, the Plus prints about three times faster than the original, depending of course, on the software drivers used by your ST programs. Note that since the Plus has a faster CPU, it processes all data faster than the original. Thus, it isn't necessary for printer drivers to be re-written for the Plus. New drivers are available, however, that do print much faster, but these also print faster on the original DeskJet. Programs like WordPerfect however, need new drivers to access the different internal fonts used in both the DeskJet and DeskJet Plus. The Plus has additional internal fonts for italic and landscape modes that weren't available in the original printer. In addition, the Plus can use newer Times and Helvetica font cartridges that now produce better looking text than the ones used by the original DeskJet. These older font cartridges can be used by the Plus, but with no improvement over the original DeskJet. The newer Plus cartridges provide sharper, blacker text with less space between the letters. Note that these default font cartridges are only used by word processors, databases and other programs that use "built-in printer fonts." Desktop publishing style programs always use "graphic mode," and thus their fonts and graphics are produced as a bit map--a totally different process. Another big improvement in the DeskJet Plus is a newly designed prime function which completely cured all the previous problems on earlier models. Now, I only prime ink cartridges when first installed. After that, the printer has all the ink it needs to print the most beautiful solids you've ever seen. In fact, I've even printed entire sheets in reverse (white letters on a solid black background) just to "startle the natives." Read my lips, this printer is terrific! Ink Cartridges The Plus uses the same black ink cartridges with water soluble ink as the original DeskJet. Although you may have seen color cartridges which look similar, available for the HP PaintJet, these will not work in the DeskJet. Among other things, the ink used is completely different. Additionally, some people are now attempting to refill spent cartridges with a hypodermic syringe and fountain pen ink. Personally, I find this to be of little value when one considers that (1) nothing looks better than the original HP black ink, and (2) I normally get back about $1,500 (you heard me right) per cartridge, since I use the DeskJet for commercial typesetting. And since new, good cartridges cost only about $15 (street price), why should I bother? While the water soluble ink poses no problem for typesetting (I always cover my camera-ready pages with a thin sheet of tracing paper anyway), water soluble ink could cause problems if used on mailing labels or on envelopes. And to solve this problem I have a solution. After printing on envelopes or labels (use "laser labels" since they are thinner, and will wrap around the platen), simply spray the surface with a special "fixative" or clear spray used in graphic arts. This plastic coating will protect not only inkjet pages, but laser pages as well, from moisture, dirt, smudges, etc. You can get a can of this spray at your local art or drafting supply store for about $5.00. I use "Sprayway #204 matte fixative" and "Chartpak Clear Spray." Note that while printing mailing labels on a DeskJet is possible, it is not recommended for heavy use. This is because of the danger that a label could come off the backing paper and stick to the internal platen roller, making it difficult to remove. A better method is to simply use a photocopy machine to print the actual labels, after the original copy has been produced on the DeskJet. The Environment Since the performance of any DeskJet is linked directly to the hardware and software that helps drive it, let's discuss how my own system is currently setup and how it relates to the DeskJet and my own main interest--desktop publishing. I now have a Mega2 which is my fifth Atari ST computer since its debut back in 1985. I first used NeoChrome as my main graphics program. In fact, back in those early days, many of us actually used NeoChrome as our first "desktop publishing program," but as I said, nothing else was available, and it at least had a few different "typefaces" that could be used. But so much for history. Now it's 1989 and it's a totally different ball game. We now have programs like Calamus, PageStream, Publisher ST, Fleet Street Publisher, and others which output at 300 dpi and more! But to harness this power one needs not only a great printer, but other goodies as well if the process is to be relatively fast and efficient. Computers and Memory While either DeskJet works fine on even a standard 520ST for printing basic text files and such, you really need at least one megabyte for real desktop publishing applications and CAD programs. Remember that since the DeskJet has essentially no memory of its own (comes with only 16K--great for text files but not for 300 dpi graphics), it needs the memory in your computer to function. More memory means more fonts, bigger scanned pictures, longer text files for multi-page documents, faster program execution, and faster printouts. All currently available Atari ST desktop publishing programs will work with one meg of RAM on the DeskJet. But programs like DeskTop Publisher and especially Calamus (which needs more RAM for scaling fonts) will find it harder going for anything beyond a few simple pages. PageStream, on the other hand, takes up less memory than most other Atari ST desktop publishing programs and, so, gives you more available memory to use for files, fonts, etc. PageStream does especially well on the DeskJet when using UltraScript (Postscript) with the just released DeskJet driver which is the fastest I've seen! Easy Draw also works well in only 1 Mb. It is interesting to note that a 1040ST/DeskJet combo leaves about as much working memory as an Atari Mega2/Atari laser printer combination. In fact, it's very difficult to do much of anything in desktop publishing on an Atari laser without a minimum of four whopping megabytes of RAM! The best power/performance match is the DeskJet and a Mega 2 (or an upgraded 1040). Since I purchased the Mega 2, I've yet to see a dreaded "out of memory message" in the middle of a desktop publishing program--even with a huge 650K Calamus file using lots of Compugraphic fonts and lots of scanned images. The Mega 2 is the perfect companion for the DeskJet! Hard Drives As you all must surely know by now, computers run much better and faster with a hard drive. And since a hard drive can help you load fonts, files, and other such things much faster, this means your DeskJet will also seem to speed up a bit. This is especially true of Timeworks Desktop Publisher which makes disk accesses almost constantly (it's a direct port of the IBM version). Since printer fonts must always be loaded right before printing (no matter what program) a hard drive will certainly increase your overall productivity with not only the DeskJet, but other printers as well. Buffers While in my original review of the DeskJet I said that using the optional 128K HP ram cartridge would speed up printing, I was partially in error. Actually, the documentation was in error since it did say that the RAM cartridge could be used to extend the printer's RAM. And while this general statement was true, it only applies when downloading fonts to the printer. These "soft fonts" replace the internal default fonts of the printer, and are used mostly by word processing programs which use the text mode, rather than the graphic mode used by typesetting programs like Calamus or Publisher ST. A third-party external buffer, however, can be used as a "RAM cache" to speed up printing of bit maps. As an example, I upgraded my old MicroFazer, in-line, parallel printer buffer to 128K and connected it between my computer and the DeskJet. This has speeded up the time it takes to "return to the computer" by about 15%. Remember that to image a typical "full page" at 300 dpi requires almost one full meg of memory. And since my buffer's 128K memory is about 15% of one meg, it therefore takes over from the computer the job of handling the bit mapped file about 15% faster than without the buffer. Note that I've tried other, less expensive hardware buffers that did not work properly. In addition, my MicroFazer (made by Quadram Corp.) also works when printing screen dumps. Earlier in this article I talked about some people having problems when connected to the parallel port. And part of this problem could just be that you may be using an "inferior" buffer that can't cut the mustard. As I've said, the MicroFazer is the only external buffer I've tried that actually does what you expect it to do without any hassles. DeskJet Software... At first, there was only the DeskJet and one lonely GDOS printer driver from Migraph. But since the DeskJet is compatible with the HP LaserJet, you could also use drivers made for the HP laser printer. In addition, one could also use the HP Epson emulation cartridge to further extend the usefulness of the DeskJet. But now there are drivers for just about every major Atari ST program, and without question, these new "smart" drivers can really deliver. They are much faster than those first drivers that hit the market and, especially on the DeskJet Plus, they provide a very remarkable speed improvement over older versions. Most notable are the drivers for Calamus, PageStream and UltraScript. Until recently, the fastest driver was for GDOS output, but now Calamus prints almost as fast as GDOS, while the Ultrascript DeskJet driver prints a full page in about one minute (not counting the time to image the page in memory). In fact, the new DeskJet Plus can reportedly print faster than it can receive data from the parallel port! Tips and Tricks Here are some additional tips and tricks you can try for improving your DeskJet: Using G+Plus from Codehead Software when using GDOS output speeds up font loading, etc. Use the TurboJet printer driver from Neocept. Although this enhanced GDOS DeskJet driver speeds up an original DeskJet about 30%, it appears to have no effect with the DeskJet Plus. Since software companies are constantly improving their printer drivers, make sure that you have the latest driver for each of your programs! Probably the quickest way to print column "galley type" for small newspapers, etc. is with WordPerfect. But make sure that you have the latest version of the program and call them about how to install the DeskJet driver properly. If you suddenly start having problems with DeskJet output, it might be caused by a corrupt file on your hard drive. Re-copy your GDOS printer driver to your hard drive at regular intervals. It took me many hours to figure this problem out myself! You can also use your DeskJet with the Magic Sac Macintosh emulator, but you will need the "HP LaserJet emulation driver" available from SoftStyle. This driver emulates only the Apple ImageWriter (impact ribbon printer) which is similar to Epson dot matrix output. It works fine, and can be easily installed with the "Chooser," but don't expect 300 dpi output. Apple has recently announced that it is soon shipping an HP DeskJet under Apple's own label which will indeed provide 300 dpi output using special fonts. Note that the Apple Macintosh has always relied on Postscript for high-resolution output. The Atari ST has actually had an advantage in that there have been various ways to produce 300 dpi output without Postscript. These include GDOS and various proprietary graphic output methods such as those used by programs like Calamus and PageStream. Public Domain Utilities Since the availability of the original DeskJet, there have appeared on GEnie and other services, various public domain programs to help the DeskJet perform even better. These include EPSJET.ARC, an Epson printer emulator; JETSET16.ARC, a handy desk accessory which allows you to set various features on the DeskJet from the desktop; MARGINHP.ARC, a little program I made to set the left margin of the DeskJet to one inch (real handy when printing files from the desktop); various printer drivers for WordWriter ST, First Word Plus, etc.; and many more "free" public domain programs. I will send a complete set of these programs plus various informative text files about the DeskJet to the editor of Current Notes for possible inclusion in the Current Notes disk library. Accessories Although the DeskJet printer itself is really all that you need for most any job, Hewlett Packard now offers over 30 accessories for both the DeskJet and DeskJet Plus. These include over 20 font cartridges, a dust cover, a handy plastic cabinet for keeping your supplies, various soft fonts for IBM programs, and more. You can obtain an accessory catalog and other information by calling HP Direct at 800-538-8787. Finally, I'd like to thank David Neff, "the father of the DeskJet," and Hewlett Packard for giving new meaning to the phrase "power without the price." Happy Printing! * * * * * * * * * * IBM/MAC COMPATIBILITY Is My Atari IBM (Mac) Compatible? by Greg Csullog [Reprinted from the December, 1989 issue of Current Notes.] I want to tell you all about the Atari ST computer's marvelous compatibility with IBM PCs and Apple Macintosh computers. However, to fully appreciate what I am going to tell you, you will need some background information. Do not despair if you find the following information difficult to understand (there are a lot of concepts introduced) because I will summarize the points discussed. Background Information One of the questions I am asked regularly by individuals who are considering buying a computer is, "Is the Atari ST computer IBM compatible?" The problem in answering the question is that there are various levels of compatibility to consider. Let's look at these levels. Microprocessor Compatibility At the heart of every microcomputer is a microprocessor chip, the "brain" of the system. Different computers may have different chips. IBM PC type computers use Intel chips; the 8088, 8086, 80286 or 80386 chips. Macintosh (except the Mac SE/30 and Mac II), some models of Amiga and the Atari ST use the Motorola 68000 chip). Even though all the various "brains" only understand patterns of ones and zeros (bit patterns), they use different instruction sets that determine how the computer interprets bit patterns as their fundamental language. These differences in instruction sets at the microprocessor level mean that a program developed to run on PCs (with Intel processors) cannot run on a Mac, an Amiga or an ST (with Motorola processors) unless the program is translated from Intel's instruction set to Motorola's. Even when translated, there is another complicating factor; operating systems. Operating System Compatibility An operating system is a program or a family of programs that tells your computer how to use its brain to interact with and control other components such as the keyboard, the monitor, disk drives, etc. Just as you have to fill up your brain with knowledge to be able to deal with your world, the computer must have an operating system for its brain to deal with its world and with you, the user. Operating systems tell your computer's brain how the physical components of your computer (the hardware) are organized and how to run programs (the software) to do useful work. This hardware connection means that even if you translate a program from Intel's instruction set to Motorola's, the program may not run because it is in a different hardware and operating system environment. Even though the Mac, the Amiga and the Atari ST use the same microprocessor, they have different operating systems and a program developed to run on the Mac may not run on the ST or the Amiga (unless you do something called emulation, described later). Let's suppose you overcome the problems of translation for microprocessor instruction sets and the hardware/operating system differences between two computers. Is the battle over? Not yet--you still have to contend with disk compatibility. Disk Compatibility When you buy a box of 3.5" disks you do not have to specify that you want disks for a Mac, an ST, etc. The reason is that the disks are blank when you buy them. The first thing you have to do before you can use a disk is format it. Formatting is the process of putting down electronic grids (analogous to lines on graph paper) that serve to structure the information that is stored on a disk. The Amiga, the Mac and the ST all use different ways of formatting disks. Therefore, once you format a disk on a Mac, you cannot use it on an Atari unless you reformat it for the Atari. Fortunately, the IBM PC and the Atari use the same disk formatting protocol. So far we have seen microprocessor, operating system and disk incompatibility between major computer systems. Remember the question at the start of this article, "Is the Atari ST compatible with the IBM PC?". The answer is YES and NO. Read on !!!!! YES, Disk Compatibility Information stored on Atari disks can be accessed by an IBM PC and vice versa (see note below). Why? As stated before, the ST and the PC format disks the same way. Does this mean that any file (a block of information) created by an ST can be used by a PC and vice versa? The answer is NO. (Please note, accessed versus used. While the PC and the Atari can read each other's disks that does not mean they can necessarily understand what is stored on each other disks.) [Note: Until the latest version of the Atari ST operating system (TOS 1.4) was released, disks had to be formatted on an IBM PC or compatible to be usable on both the ST and PC. If they were formatted on the Atari, they could not be read by the PC. Now, full disk compatibility exists so disks formatted on the ST with TOS 1.4 can be used as-is on the PC. For those ST owners who do not have TOS 1.4, the software packages NeoDesk and DCFMT overcome the problem of the earlier operating system versions.] NO, File Compatibility Various computer programs save information onto disks in different ways. For example, a drawing program stores picture files one way, a word processor another, etc. Even similar types of programs (such as two different word processors) may store information in different ways. Just as on identical computers (such as two PCs) with the same disks but different word processors you may not be able to exchange information, two different computers (such as an ST and a PC) may not be able to share information because the programs they run may store and retrieve information differently even though the disks have the same format. Above I asked, "Can any file created on an ST be used by a PC?" and the answer was no. If I had asked if some files can be used, the answer would be yes. YES, File Compatibility Different computer programs, whether they run on the same computer or different computers altogether, can share information by: (i) writing/reading to/from disks using the same file structure. For example, LDW on the Atari, LOTUS on the PC and EXCEL on the Mac can all read and write LOTUS type data files. Therefore, if you can get a LOTUS file transferred from a PC disk to a Mac disk, EXCEL can use a LOTUS data file. (ii) having importing/exporting functions to translate information from one file format to another. For example, data from a spreadsheet program can be exported to a database format file for use by a database program. (iii) reading/writing information in some "neutral" format that all the programs can understand For example, most word processors can write and read standard text files; referred to as ASCII files (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Using ASCII format allows you to read your text into just about any word processor around on any computer. YES, Program Clones We have seen that programs can share information in a variety of ways. However, merely sharing information is not enough. You should not have to learn two programs on two different computers just to use the data that is shared by two programs. That is why software developers produce clones (look-alike programs that work virtually the same as the original). For example, LDW is a LOTUS spreadsheet clone for the Atari ST. While LOTUS (a PC program) is not available for the ST, LDW runs just like LOTUS so you do not have to learn two different programs. If you know how to use LOTUS, you know how to use LDW. Therefore, compatibility can be at the program level with software clones that read the data files of original software and run like the original software. Many PC programs have clones on the Atari ST (including dBASE, LOTUS, GEM Draw). YES, Ported Software In addition to cloning, developers of major software packages will produce versions that run on a variety of machines (this is called porting). Porting can be crucial to software success since wide availability across many computers means buyers do not have to worry about getting something that will only run on their computers. Word Perfect, possibly the most popular word processor around, is available on the ST, the Amiga, the Mac, the PC, mainframes, etc. Therefore, the ST is compatible with the PC in disk format and for major software packages through clones and ported software. What about software that is not cloned or ported? Ah, now there's emulation! YES, Emulation What is emulation? In computer jargon it refers to making one type of computer act like another type. Through software, hardware add-ons or a combination of both, one computer can be turned into a clone of another. PC Ditto is a piece of software that actually turns the Atari ST into an IBM PC compatible computer. IBM programs, right out of the box, will run on the ST without translation. Therefore, software that has neither been cloned nor ported to the ST can still run on the ST because PC Ditto makes your ST think it is an IBM computer. There are drawbacks. First, IBM PC compatible computers do not have their operating systems built into them. When you buy an IBM PC type computer, you also have to buy DOS (Disk Operating System). The same applies for PC Ditto; to run IBM PC software on an Atari you have to buy DOS in addition to PC Ditto and that can add about $100 to the cost of running IBM PC software. Second, PC Ditto has to translate all Intel instructions to Motorola instructions and this slows down the emulation. With PC Ditto, the Atari ST can run IBM PC software at about one third the speed of an IBM PC XT (the bottom of the line PC). Avant-Garde, the developers of PC Ditto, released PC Ditto II. This is a hardware/software combination that overcomes the speed problem. With PC Ditto II, an Atari ST can run IBM PC software at three times the speed of a basic IBM PC XT. Background Information Summary Using the example of Atari ST/IBM PC compatibility, we have seen that the question "Is computer A compatible with computer B?" is not easy to answer. You have to consider media compatibility (Can you use the same disks with both computers?), software compatibility (Is the software you are interested in available on both computers either by porting or cloning? If the same software is not available can the data files be shared by different programs on the two computers?) and emulation (If emulation is available are there disadvantages such as slower performance?). If you really, really need compatibility with computer A but you are thinking of buying computer B because you prefer its features, you have to ask yourself "How important is compatibility? and "How much compatibility do I need?". The answers will tell you whether or not you should buy computer A after all. Through emulation, Atari ST computers can run as IBM PC or Apple Macintosh computers. The following describes the steps involved in getting three microcomputers in one. PC Emulation As described, PC Ditto is a software package that allows Atari ST computers to run IBM PC software. PC Ditto II is a hardware/ software package that greatly improves IBM emulation on the ST. You start PC Ditto or PC Ditto II like any other Atari software package - simply double click on its program icon. PC Ditto forces the Atari ST to abandon its own operating system (which is built into the ST on microchips) and replaces it with a working environment that uses the IBM operating system DOS. Shortly after PC Ditto is started, the user is asked to insert a DOS system disk into the disk drive. Unless you supply DOS, you will not be able to run PC software; this is not a limitation of the Atari since the same is required for a PC. After the DOS disk is supplied, DOS will load into the Atari ST's memory. Once loaded, the ST is transformed into an IBM PC compatible computer. From this point onward, you will require PC programs on 3.5" disks and the associated manuals. If you have PC software on the older 5.25" disks, you will have to copy it to a 3.5" disk on a PC equipped with both 3.5" and 5.25" drives or you can buy a 5.25" disk drive for the ST. Use the first option--it's a lot cheaper! WARNING! If you do not have any experience with IBM PC computers you are going to have a tough time getting going with PC Ditto. Unlike the Atari ST's operating system, with its mouse/icon interface, DOS is a command line based operating system and users have to familiarize themselves with DOS before they can use their PCs effectively. When my friend Mark Branecki and I ran our computer camp in the fall of 1988, new users found DOS very difficult to understand. Eventually, we had to limit DOS training because so little was being accomplished. Our students were relieved when we turned the Atari computers back into ST's (to exit PC emulation you will have to restart the computer). Mac Emulation There are several Mac emulators on the market but I will discuss only one - Spectre 128. Spectre is a hardware/software product that turns an Atari ST into a Macintosh computer. Spectre lets the ST run Mac software at the same speed as on a real Mac (and in many cases faster). Since the Mac and the Atari have the same microprocessor (the Motorola 68000), the emulator does not have to translate instructions as the PC emulator has to. Spectre provides the Mac operating system to run Mac software as follows: Unlike the Atari ST, which has its entire operating system on chips inside the computer, the Mac operating system is partly on chips and partly disk-based software. When you buy Spectre, you also have to buy the Mac's operating system chips (most dealers will include these chips when you buy Spectre). These chips are installed inside the Spectre cartridge which plugs into the cartridge slot on the ST. Spectre does not include the software portion of the Mac's operating system. However, the Mac has undergone so many revisions in its operating system that the latest versions are supplied free of charge to Mac users (and to Spectre 128 users). Once the Mac's chips are in the cartridge and you have the Mac's disk-based operating system, you have all the components needed to run Mac software. There is a hitch, however. The Mac and the ST do not have compatible disk drives. Therefore, you cannot put a Mac disk into an ST equipped with Spectre and run Mac software. There are several ways around this incompatibility problem. First, hook a Mac and an ST together and transfer the software (not recommended). Second, have a dealer transfer your Mac software to a special Spectre format disk that the ST can read. Third, buy a hardware add-on that tricks your ST's drive into thinking it is a Mac drive (not recommended because of price). Fourth, buy Spectre GCR, the latest version of Spectre 128. Spectre GCR lets your ST read/write Mac disks at the same speed a Mac will read/write them. Spectre GCR does not affect your ST's ability to use Atari or PC disks. Since the Atari ST's mouse/icon interface is similar to the Mac system, using the Atari as a Mac is really quite straight forward. Remember the warning about the user unfriendly PC operating system when using PC Ditto. Do not worry about the Mac - it's extremely user friendly and I do not have a corresponding warning for the Spectre emulator. Parting Shot I have heard people say the Atari cannot be a very good machine because it tries to run like a PC or a Mac. These people say the computer you buy should be the one answer to your needs. Well, that's nonsense! The plain truth is that computer loyalty is stronger than GM or Ford loyalty and PC people blast Mac users, Amiga folks put down the ST, Mac users laugh at PC users, etc. For the foreseeable future, a mix of micros will be in the market and as users move from work place to work place, they will be confronted with different systems (in my full time day job, I have to work with CYBERS, VAXs, PCs and the ST; I also provide assistance to Mac users). Knowledge and use of more than one computer system is a valuable asset. The beauty of the ST is that it is inexpensive and so is most of its software. In addition, with products like PC Ditto II and Spectre GCR, it can run IBM or Macintosh programs. Having three micros in one through emulation, the Atari ST is THE PERFECT tool for schools, colleges and universities since three separate systems can be taught from one inexpensive computer. * * * * * * * * * * the beginning of exploring this thing and Current Notes will keep you posted as we search for better software an Current Notes ST Library #515: STARTING BLOCK & OTHER TUTORIALS This disk is filled with articles to help you get the most out of your ST. The two files SBLOCK89 and SBLOCK90 contain the "Starting Block" columns written by Richard Gunter in 1989 and 1990. The contents of each of those files are listed below. The TUTORIAL.DOC file contains an additional 14 articles published in the last two years. The contents of this file are also listed below. The file HARD-DR.DOC contains 8 articles about hard drives. Use the READER22.PRG to read these files. This program will allow you to page through the text (forward or backward), find any particular word, go to any particular page number, display a table of contents and "click" on the section you want to read. I hope you find these articles useful. SBLOCK89.DOC Nov '88: Hooking Up the Mega Dec '88: Of Boots and Other Accessories Feb '89: Hard Need Not Be Terrifying Mar '89: Painful Necessities Apr '89: Managing Your Hard Drive May '89: My Favorite Utilities Jun '89: XL to ST File Transfers Jul '89: Computer Shopping, Part 1 Sep '89: Computer Shopping, Part 2 Oct '89: Michtron's Turbo Kit Nov '89: CodeHead Utilities Disk Dec '89: 'Tis the Season... SBLOCK90.DOC Feb '90: For the ARC Of It... Mar '90: Using ARC 6.02 Apr '90: ARC Alternatives May '90: Of Mice and Desktops Jun '90: Random Thoughts Jul '90: Cataloging Floppy Disks Sep '90: Your First Hard Drive Oct '90: Where Has the memory Gone? Nov '90: Viruses, Memory and Desk Accessories Dec '90: Seasonal Reflections TUTORIAL.DOC May '88: To Use or Not to Use, That is the ? by Ron Peters Nov '88: The Low Down on Modems by Ron Peters Mar '88: Computer Languages for the ST: Which One is Right for You?, by John Marable Mar '88: Let's Build a Mailing List by Joe Waters Mar '88: The Desktop Publishing Market: What Are Your Choices? by Wm. Price Sep '88: An Introduction to Spreadsheets: As Easy as 1-2-3 by Joe Waters Apr '89: ST Word Processors: How to Pick the Right One for You... by Jim Wallace Apr '90: How to Improve Your ST Productivity: Confessions of a Neodesk/ Revolver/UIS Junkie, by Greg Csullog Oct '90: The New Look in CLI's: Plain Vanilla with Chocolate Sauce by John Barnes Mar '90: Pha$ar 4.0: The Best Gets Better Review and Tutorial by John Barnes May '90: Typesetting with the ST: A Tour de Force of the Printer Driver and Fonts Menagerie, by Bill Price Sep '90: Such Things Don't Happen to Nice People: What to Do If You Got a Virus ???, by J. Andrzej Wrotniak Dec '89: DeskJet Revisited: An indepth look at the newer, faster HP InkJet printer--the DeskJet Plus and some tips on getting the most out of your DeskJet, by Jim Wallace Dec '89: Is My Atari IBM (Mac) Compatible? by Greg Csullog HARD_DRV.DOC Feb '89: Hard disk Drives: Off-the-Shelf or Roll Your Own, A Provocative Inspection of Choices, with Prices and Clues on How to Avoid Disaster, by William Price. Oct '89: Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 1, by David Troy Nov '89: Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 2, by David Troy Dec '89: Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 3, by David Troy Feb '90: Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 4, by David Troy Dec '89: Hard Drive Backup Technologies: A Survey of Your HD Backup Options: Comparing the Toad 44, Fast Tape Backup, DVT/VCR, and Software Backup Utilities Turtle and Diamond Back. by John Barnes Oct '89: The Syquest 44 MB Removable Cartridge Hard Drive Review by John Barnes Nov '90: A Neophyte's Guide to the 44 MB Removable Hard Disk: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Power Computing by Mike Heininger (CN November 1990). I did not want to buy a vulnerable massive storage device that would take more time to learn and manage than it would repay in utility or peace of mind. Dollar per Megabyte Threshold To me, hard disks could never be cost effective until they reached the dollar per megabyte threshold. Some of the higher capacity hard disk drives for Atari finally achieved that milestone, e.g., 85 megabytes for $749. And then along came the 44-megabyte removable hard disk cartridge. The drive with one cartridge is $750--not cost effective in my book. But add a second 44-megabyte cartridge for $80 and you have 88 megabytes for $830. Bingo! Cost effective! A third cartridge provides 132 megabytes for $910. And a fourth ... ad infinitum. Of course, to properly manage all this storage takes some new software, another $100 worth or so. I bought Universal Item Selector III HARD DISK DRIVES Hard Disk Drives Off-The-Shelf or Roll Your Own, A Provocative Inspection of Choices, with Prices and Clues on How to Avoid Disaster by William Price [Reprinted from the January/February 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Those who don't have hard disk drives probably approach them with the same value/burden questions posed for modems--who needs one? On the plus side, hard disks give you finger tip, immediate access to a broad range of your software and text or data files, and they transfer these resources to your ST at "lightening fast" speed. From a practical perspective, the newer and more powerful software almost dictates use of a hard disk. Word Perfect, Timeworks Desktop Publisher, and PageStream are examples. For Spectre 128/Macintosh users, the latest version of PageMaker cannot run from a floppy disk. The application program is so large that it requires two double-sided floppies. The two parts must be joined on a hard disk with an install utility. As users demand more robust software, more program code and more bytes are generated and the need for a hard disk and greater internal RAM capacity become essential. Now the owners of 20MB drives are jumping across 30MB to 50 and even 80. Both Seagate and MiniScribe offer 110MB drives that cost about $100 more than one three-quarters the capacity; so why settle for less! The simplest way to acquire a hard disk is to buy a complete drive system made specifically for the ST. Supra, ICD, Astra, and Atari are suppliers of these drives. But why one made specifically for the ST? Because none of the raw hard drive mechanisms or controllers will work directly with the ST. There must be a host adapter interface to mate a drive and controller, normally of the ST506/412 or SCSI interface standard, to the ST's DMA port. Supra, ICD, and Berkley Micro Systems (BMS) produce these ST adapter boards and they are available separately or in a kit with other components. So why not buy a kit and roll-your-own to save money? If you know what you are doing, have a lot of patience, and can logically troubleshoot and isolate problems, the answer is, "Go-for-it!" Otherwise, buy a complete ST drive from one of the above suppliers, plug it in, and enjoy your expanded capabilities. If you already have a drive and need more capacity, there are basically two choices: add another complete drive system from Supra, ICD, or Astra to the existing one, or build the second drive. I thought the latter choice seemed attractive, but being uncertain as to what to buy, it was evident that some research was called for. I offer the results of that research to CN readers who might also be considering hard drive alternatives. First is an overview of the two basic drive types--MFM and RLL. The differences are in capacity, density, and data transfer speed. Second is a review of sector interleaving and what it does to improve transfer of data. This is controlled by the user when the drive is formatted. Next are options for daisy chaining another drive, and then a summary of all the components you will need to assemble a complete drive system. Finally, a sampling of prices provides a guide to buying and deciding to go for off-the-shelf or roll-your-own. Armed with this information, a better choice can be made. And for those who already have a hard disk drive, you should have better insight to your next moves. MFM And RLL Drives There are basically two types of drives that differ in their encoding and formatting schemes and, consequently, their performance. They are MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) and RLL (Run Length Limited). The MFM format, the older of the two, was introduced by Seagate in 1979. You will recall that disk tracks are laid out in concentric rings around the hub--like a target with a bulls eye. Radiating from the bulls eye, the disk and it's tracks are divided into sectors much like slicing a pizza. Most hard drives have multiple disks or platters, each tracked and sectored in this manner. For example, one of the 20MB Seagate models uses three rigid disk platters giving a total of six surfaces. However, the very top and bottom surfaces are not used, and for the four remaining surfaces, each has a separate read/write head to independently handle data transfer functions. In this example, each surface has 611 usable tracks, and with MFM encoding there are 17 sectors. This is the first distinction between MFM and RLL--the number of sectors. For both MFM and RLL, a sector has a usable capacity of 512 bytes. Sound familiar? Floppy disks also have 512 byte sectors. This is a shared standard for floppy and hard disks, their drive controllers, and utilities. The Atari and IBM Basic Input/Output Systems (BIOS) support 512 byte sectors based on the computer method of measuring storage capacity--by powers of 2. (This is familiar as a progression of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. Sector sizes are 29, 1K bytes are more precisely 1,024 or 210, and 1MB is actually 1,048,576 bytes.) In 1986, Adaptec introduced a controller with RLL encoding and formatting--a scheme developed by IBM for large hard disk drives used with mainframe computers. The newer RLL format gives fifty percent additional capacity by increasing the number of sectors from 17 to 26. With RLL, a 20MB drive is capable of 30MB capacity, and a 40MB drive is increased in capacity to 60MB. But don't try to use an MFM drive with an RLL controller. RLL requires a higher quality disk surface; so proper matching of drive and controller is essential. RLL encoding brings with it another advantage. With greater density per track, the read/write heads can access 50 percent more data thereby reducing the number of track-to-track seeks in a transfer operation. The data transfer rate for RLL is therefore greater--7.5 megabits per second (mbps) compared to 5.0 mbps for MFM. Drives are not always labeled as to type. For example, Seagate RLL drives have an R suffix, e.g. ST-277R--a 65MB RLL drive. But there is no similar indicator for MFM. MiniScribe does not use an identifier at all. The distinction can only be found in their specifications for Data Transfer Rate, 5.0 drives are MFM and 7.5 are RLL. Beyond these distinctions in density, track access time may vary from a slow 61 milliseconds (ms) to a faster 15ms. The better price performers operate at a seek rate of around 28ms. Drive platters are either 3.5" or 5.25" in diameter and are stacked in either half or full height depending on the drive capacity and number of platters. The platter and head mechanisms are sealed to support a dust free environment required for such precision operation. In summary, RLL drives provide 50 percent greater capacity than MFM, and the megabyte cost per dollar is usually less. With this greater density comes a faster data transfer rate. Beyond MFM and RLL is Extended RLL recently introduced by Maynard Electronics. Instead of a 50 percent advantage, ERLL offers a 90 percent increase in capacity on the same size disk surface. A mechanism the size of a 40MB MFM drive can now have a 76MB ERLL capacity along with an increase in data transfer to almost 10 megabits per second. Hard disk drive developers are not in a coma! Another supplier has announced ARLL (Advanced), Perstor has introduced their ADRT (Advanced Data Recording Technology) controller, and ESDI (Enhanced Small Disk Interface) drives are beginning to appear. But don't wait for this technology. It is more expensive and there is the potential for a new Tower of Babel among drives, controllers, and utilities until a new standard emerges. At least one manufacturer feels that RLL is close to running on the edge of magnetic surface technology, and it is content with addressing the broader marketplace at the RLL plateau. Is RLL safe? You bet! It is a new hard disk standard. Then what about full versus half height and 3.5" or 5.25" drives? The drive height as well as the disk diameter are functions of capacity. Increased capacity requires a larger disk surface and the addition of platters. Half height drives and 3.5" platters peak out in capacity between 40 and 70MB. Full height and 5.25" drives do need larger cases, they demand more watts, and as a consequence run warmer. Heat is the arch enemy of electronic components; so a good fan and air circulation are essential. Interleave Ratios As for average seek rate and track access, the rate of data transfer is more important, and the most important factor influencing the speed of data transfer is the interleave ratio. MFM and RLL drives spin at 3600 RPM--12 times faster than a floppy disk. With drives formatted in a 1:1 interleave ratio, the entire contents of a track (either 17 MFM or 27 RLL sectors) can be transferred in a single rotation. However, since IBM PCs were the driving force for production of small hard disk drives, their computer specifications determined how fast data transfer could be. IBM PC's, versus ST's, simply became overloaded at this speed; so a higher interleaving ratio was used to slow the rate of transfer for IBM's. Interleaving deals with the physical layout and placement of sectors--the logical order is consecutive, but beyond a ratio of 1:1 the sectors are not contiguous or physically adjacent. With 17 sector MFM drives, the interleave ratio can range from 1:1 to 16:1. With 1:1 interleaving, the sectors are in logical order as well as contiguous, and data transfer is the fastest. The slowest rate is with 16:1 where the transfer of one track takes 16 revolutions of the disk. Not very desirable. The stock IBM PC XT has a 4.77 MHz clock; so it must use the slower 6:1 interleave when formatting. The logical sectors are spaced six apart and thus the data string for a file is continued every sixth sector. With a 6:1 ratio, 6 revolutions are required to transfer an entire track. The faster PC AT can operate with a 2:1 interleave--half the rate or twice as slow as 1:1. The Mac II supports 1:1, but the SE requires a slower 2:1 and Mac Plus can't operate at less than a 3:1 ratio. What about the ST? With its DMA port and direct access to RAM, the ST can fly along at the 1:1 ratio or a full 7.5 megabits per second using an RLL controller and drive. The ST's DMA supports a 10.6 megabit or 1.33 megabyte per second transfer--the entire contents of a 1040 ST's RAM in one second! When ERLL, ARLL, ESDI, and ADRT encoding stabilize into an industry standard, the ST will easily handle their higher transfer rates. But this high rate can be limited by other factors. Applications software may call for small chunks of data at a time and thereby increase the number of accesses that must be made. Another factor is fragmentation of files. When data is deleted from the hard disk, these sectors will be reallocated and made available. Then as new files are added, they may be spread across several tracks as well as disk surfaces to fill the freed sectors. Read/write heads will be given a workout in accessing a file that is fragmented in this manner, and transfer will be noticeably slower. This can be remedied by Tune Up or other utilities that rearrange disk files to place them in logically contiguous sectors. Another major slowdown bug is encountered with the ST TOS. Its File Allocation Table (FAT) search algorithm is terribly inefficient. A significant improvement in TOS 1.4 corrects this deficiency, and the new access rate will actually knock your socks off. Furthermore, a benchmarked transfer of Macintosh hard disk files with the Spectre 128 emulator is faster than with a Macintosh-- including the Mac II. The ST is a performer! Daisy Chaining Drives With this background, let's look at options for adding to an existing drive. The Supra and ICD drives fortunately have a host adapter interface board and a controller that support multiple drives--Supra pegs an outer limit at 16 chained drives. The Berkley (BMS) interface only supports a single drive. If you use the SCSI (DB-25) female port on the rear of the Supra for chaining another drive, you will have to buy an additional controller board along with the second drive mechanism. This DB-25 port is connected to Supra's host adapter interface board and does not share the existing disk controller. The primary uses of this outlet are to connect another complete drive system, or to provide a SCSI pass through connection. Since most Supras and ICDs use an RLL mechanism and controller, the quickest and least expensive route is to add another RLL drive by chaining directly off the controller board. This requires a 34-pin ribbon cable crimped with three connectors--one for the controller's edge card, one for the existing drive, and one for the new drive. Another 20-pin ribbon cable is also required to complete connections. In most cases, additional drives and controllers can be chained in the same manner provided the connections and interfaces (ST506/412 or SCSI) are the same. When adding a second drive, a larger case ($18-$30) and an additional power supply are needed. Depending on drive height and disk diameter, drive mechanisms consume between 11 and 25 watts. Cases that can accommodate multiple drives, usually two full heights or TEXT READING PROGRAM V2.2a GEM Version March 1989 ANY TEXT FILE CAN BE READ MORE EFFICIENTLY 1989 By ASDE Inc. Shareware distributed by: ASDE Inc. 151 Jolicoeur Hull, Quebec J8Z 1C8 CANADA Tel: (819) 770-7681 Compuserve 72417,3026 * ****** ***** ****** *** * * * * * * * * * **** * * ****** * * **** * * * * * ******* * * * * * * ** * * * ****** ***** ****** *** * * **** * READER22.PRG This is a shareware contribution Copyrighted by ASDE Inc. V2.2a is current as of August 14, 1989. WHAT IS NEW If you have used other versions of READER you may well wonder what is new with this version. Here are the main changes. 1)The program will now interact with the user in either English or French. All menus and help screens as well as any other message to users have been translated. 2)The program now allocates all the free memory to texts. The dynamic allocation has been improved from previous versions. 3)The program is now approximately 50% smaller than previous versions. 4)The program used to recognize ST Report or ST Zmag and load their table of content faster than other texts. Now all texts are equal. This makes the program a bit slower than previous versions, for the two major online magazines. just mentionned (if you want a table of contents). The editors of these magazines obviously need to change their format from time to time and a program such as this one should not be dependent on specific format items. 5)Many users reported that I had too many boxes and that they were disruptive. I eliminated many. You can use the main Menu to set your options. 6)Program errors can now be reported back to me automatically. You simply make sure your printer is online and a letter listing a few variables will be written. If you are the first to make a fully documented report of an error you win your choice of any one of the programs published by ASDE Inc. INTRODUCTION * This program is designed to help you read any text file. I have endeavored to let your screen behave as a printed page. You can change to the next or previous page or flip to a page of your choice. You can also: Search for text strings Show a Table of Contents Print any part of the text with references and notes Save your print selection to disk or printer or both * A Title Page and a Table of Contents are created for any text file. You can turn these features off by using the menu. * The first pages of text can be read while the buffer is still being loaded. During that period you have access to the page forward and previous page commands as well as a help screen. * The Table of Contents can be seen once the text is fully loaded ........... ontents or . * From the Table of Contents you can go to any page by clicking on the appropriate title or

followed by the desired page number. * You can search for the occurence of any string in the text ............ind or . ............epeat or . * You can print any lines or part of lines ............ype or . You have a choice of printint to or . * is always available and is context sensitive. PHILOSOPHY This project started from my need to read long texts on screen with more flexibility than that provided by the option of the ST desktop. My need was for a program that would permit me to go back and forth from page to page, retrieve sections of text, know what I was going to read, and not be fatigued by continuous text scrolling in front of my eyes. To this I later added the "need" to have hard copy notes of any part of any text with full reference to the name of the text and the screen page number where it was found. I don't really need to have full text printouts except on very rare occasions. I find it wasteful of paper, and difficult to wade through. In any case if this were a need there are plenty of good formatted text printers in the Public Domain. From the stated objectives I developped the program which you now have in your computer (I hope). This is the fourth version to be posted on major bulletin boards. It is called READER22.PRG. Versions 1.x had no printing features. OPERATIONS Simply double click on READER22.PRG and a standard GEM menu will be shown. There is a HELP section in this menu should you need more information. The program also has online contextual help at all points during its operations. The reader permits very quick loading of text files. It is vastly more sophisticated than the desk top option since it permits you to go back and forth from one page, to the next or previous page and to jump, forward or back, to any page number. A book like frame has been added around the text to create a more pleasant reading environment. Page changes, either forward or backward are graphically displayed by a figurative page flipping of the right or left topmost corner. (If you do not want this graphic, you can turn it off with in the menu). The program does not scroll a page on screen but displays it all at once, this greatly diminishes eye fatigue while reading long texts. The title of the text being read as well as the present page number and last page number are displayed on the last line of every screen. A Title Page and Table of Contents are created for any text file. These functions are particularly efficient for and but will also work for other text files. You can turn off the Title Page, or Table of Contents with or in the menu. The under also foregoes the creation of a Title Page and Table of Contents. A printed notes facility is available. You can select any part of text to be printed. If your printer is Epson compatible you will get formatted pages of notes with the title of the text and the screen page number and line numbers, referenced. You can turn off the text reference feature by choosing in the main menu. For more information, see from the main menu. While in printer mode you can move pages forward or back with the same control as when you are in reader mode. This permits you for example, to choose the beginning point of text to be printed, by pointing and clicking then move forward as many pages as you want then choose the end point of the text to be printed . NOTE: While you are reading the first page of text your computer may still be reading the text to be displayed. So don't worry if the disk is spinning. While the file is being loaded. You will find that the controls are a bit more sluggish. If you jump ahead to a page which has not been loaded yet you may find an incomplete page. Just move back then forward again. To read while the disk is loading simply press: next page previous page DESKTOP MENU Contains an Author notice and permits you to use up to six standard GEM accessories. HELP MENU Contains the following help screens: General Help features of the program Options details of options offered Action details of action choices OPTIONS These menu choices permit you to toggle certain loading and display features on or off. This will speed up program loading in some cases where features would not be very useful. Remove Title: Will toggle on/off the creation of a title page. Remove Content: Will toggle on/off a table of contents page. Quick Flip: Will toggle on/off the page turning graphic. (There are default values planned in and under . These will satisfy most users. For details see .) These menu choices permit you to toggle certain printing features on or off. Check Print: Toggle on/off the confirmatin of printing Add References: Toggle top of page reference to source of text Add Notes: Toggle ability to add personal notes to printouts Print to Disk Toggle send output to disk file of your choice Print to Printer Toggle send output to printer ACTION The menu choice contains the different ways to start the program according to different default values. Thus: ************************************************************************ * Title Contents Turn Ch Print Add Ref Add Notes * * on on on on on on * * off off on on on on * * Continues reading the loaded text if there is one. Otherwise it is disabled. Quits the program and resets the desktop. FILE READER COMMANDS TO CHANGE PAGE: Left Mouse or =NEXT PAGE Right Mouse or =PREVIOUS PAGE

+(n) or

+(n) =PAGE NUMBER TO SEE TABLE OF CONTENTS: or TO SEARCH A STRING IN THE TEXT: for FIND to REPEAT a FIND TO PRINT (type) or then left mouse clicks at start/end TO QUIT: L+R Mouse or =QUIT PRINTING Many full text printers are available as accessories. Even the desktop option does a fair job. What I have provided here is very different. This is a note taking option similar to having your printer scribble notes for you while you are reading. You could compare it to an electronic "MAGIC MARKER". You can print any lines or portions of lines (portions of words if you like). They will be printed together with the name of the text screen page page number and screen line numbers. Depending on the size of your printer buffer, you can read other pages, while the printer is busy taking notes for you. You can add up to 10 lines of personal notes to each typed section of text. Note that in order to conserve tidy page setting, some sections near the bottom of the page, will permit you to add fewer lines of notes. Should you need more notes for a particular text section, it is a simple enough matter to repeat the section when the top of the next page appears on the printer. Your printed text, can also be saved to disk in the file of your choice. To Quit: Press the right mouse button or the key To Print: Press the left mouse button at the start and again at the end of the text which you want printed. An <*> will mark the beginning and end of your selection. You can change page with the Bar or key, so that the beginning and end of text can be on different pages. An Alert box will then query whether you want to print or not. You can answer . There is also a choice called . If you select this you will not be asked again to confirm printing. NOTE: 1) You can decide not to print by pressing the right mouse button or at anytime BEFORE selecting the end of text to print. 2) You can get reselect confirmation with in DISTRIBUTION You are free to distribute together with this file. Your shareware contribution will be gratefully aknowledged. AUTHOR: My name is Michel Rochon and I will gladly answer questions, evaluate suggestions and of course accept contributions. You will find attached a short description of some of my other programs. A S D E Inc. 151 rue Jolicoeur Hull, Qubec CANADA, J8Z 1C8 Tel: (819) 770-7681 Compuserve: 72417,3026 OTHER PROGRAMS BY ASDE Inc. GEOGRAPHY TUTOR: This program provides ATARI ST owners with an electronic atlas of the world with maps and data base for every country. Maps are available for the whole world and for each continent. There is also a full data base of useful facts concerning each country. For each, there are 20 items of standard information from the United Nations office of statistics. You can modify/create and save your own data bases and load them on request. The national anthem of many of the countries is included, and will play when you choose a country. All anthems are available on a separate disk. SPANISH VERB TUTOR This program is designed to help the user learn, revise or check the proper conjugation of all Spanish verbs. The program can communicate its instructions to you in English, French, Spanish or German. * 1,250,000 Different words. * 75 Different Lessons. * 12,000 Different Verbs in ALL Modes, Tenses, Persons. FRENCH VERB TUTOR All the notes from the SPANISH VERBS program aply to this program about FRENCH VERBS. GFA_BILD PROGRAM This program (GFA_BILD) is designed to help the GFA BASIC programmer save a great amount of time and effort in building sophisticated mouse driven programs. All code developed by GFA_BILD will work equally on colour (medium resolution) and monochrome monitors. ORDERING ANY OF THE PROGRAMS Prices GEOGRAPHY TUTOR $39.95 GFA_BILD $19.95 SPANISH VERB TUTOR $49.95 FRENCH VERB TUTOR $49.95 DEMO VERSIONS $ 7.50/each By Mail By Phone (Credit Card) cheque or money order to: (AMX,VISA,MASTERCARD): ASDE Inc. CHIANG COMPUTERS LTD. 151 rue Jolicoeur 1054 BANK ST. Hull, Qubec Ottawa, Ont. CANADA J8Z 1C8 Tel:(613)230-4101 Tel: (819)770-7681 (613)230-2854 four half heights, can be purchased with 150 watt power supplies for around $70-$85. With a larger case, the existing mechanism can also be traded out for a higher capacity drive and you won't be limited by physical size. However, the price you may get for your existing mechanism might be an inducement to keep it. When adding drives, check with your present drive's supplier to insure compatibility, not only with the existing drive but also with their software. By assembling your second drive you avoid the costs of an additional controller and host adapter along with labor for assembly and testing as well as marketing costs associated with a complete drive system. Savings can range from 40 to 50 percent. Thumb through Computer Shopper, attend computer shows, and weigh the price advantages against the potential reliability of your local dealer to make the decision on where to buy. Assembling Your Own For those who would like to consider rolling their own drive systems with one or more drives, you will need: 1. Drive mechanism(s) 2. Controller board to match the drive 3. Host adapter interface board (controller's SCSI to ST host DMA port) 4. Mounting brackets and hardware 5. Power supply for drives, boards, and fan 6. Fan 7. Connecting cables 8. Case 9. Hard disk software Hard Drive Mechanisms. Although there are over a dozen manufacturers of hard disk drive mechanisms such as Control Data (CDC), MicroScience, MiniScribe, Priam, Rodime, Seagate, Shugart, and Tandon, many of those used in finished IBM PC and ST drive systems are from either Seagate or MiniScribe. The latter manufactures about 3000 drive mechanisms a day and markets to sell at the same rate. Both MiniScribe and Seagate address the mass PC market, both produce good quality, but their drives won't last forever. Higher performance drives with greater durability are big bucks--in the thousands; so be content with either of these drive mechanisms because they will give you productive use. Mail order may not be convenient because of potential delays in handling exchange of defective drives. On the other hand, some local dealers may not exchange but prefer to send defective drives to the supplier for repair or replacement. Many mail order houses are so busy taking orders that they cannot provide advice and guidance. Although local dealers can usually support products sold, prices may range from 15 to 40 percent more than mail order. Table 1 gives a mail order yardstick for comparative shopping. Controller Boards. Adaptec or OMTI controller boards are widely used and range in price from $90 to $150 depending on source. The Adaptec 4000A is for MFM drives and the 4070 for RLL. The OMTI 3527, used by Supra, is an RLL controller. ICD uses Adaptec. Both Adaptec and OMTI have better interleaving ratios and provide faster data transfer than the frequently advertised Western Digital controllers. The Western Digital will not work with the Magic Sac or Spectre 128. Supra and ICD provide the best supporting software and utilities; so check with either of these suppliers to insure compatibility between the controller and software. Both sell kits that include everything but the drive itself (more later). A word of caution. Inherent in Supra's electronics is a limitation on length of the cable connecting their interface board to the ST's DMA port - about 24". Host Adapter Interface Boards. Either Supra or ICD are excellent choices for host adapter interfaces and supporting hard disk software. Prices range from $100 to $136. ICD's electronics allow a longer cable between the drive and ST--a necessity for some users. Both companies are very helpful, but voice lines for technical support are usually busy. Drop in on GEnie or Compuserve to sample the technical support provided by both on ST bulletin boards. Power Supplies and Cases. As noted earlier, PC power supplies and their prices are reasonable and they can be purchased separately as 15OW ($39) or 200W ($49) units, or they can be purchased with a PC XT or AT case ($90 - $120). A 150W supply is overkill, but often the smaller 40 or 65 Watt supplies are not as well packaged with all the necessary electrical connectors. By all means don't underpower. A drive can pull 3 to 4 times its operating amperage on startup. When making electrical connections to the drive and boards, double check before powering up to insure with certainty that they are correct. Applying 12V DC to a 5V device is guaranteed to destroy ICs. There is ample room in these XT and AT cases; so if you are a PC ditto user with a 5.25" floppy drive, this can be mounted in the case along with two or more hard disk drives and a power supply. 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N^Nu#MNN/9MNu#MNM/9MNu#MNA/9MNu 1250P 8 7855GhGq 5GwG  0@@@ 0 @@@@@@@??7x5njUx``paa??q/0 2ax ъQQQ i   i QQQш UU@PTATTAPUU3fAf3aD!D!D!D! 0a@PPP T*T(((llll(((556686X66 7p 7 8p 8>Rr Gs Bt0  b5!  b31 0 b1A( Rrl Gsl Bt0l pxqr#xs#tBxuBvaxwaxxyzx{|x}~x5HX 5X0 ,qH("!! 9 $##"9 &%%$9, (''&9: ,)*qt*9(++t*q-.qt.9,//t.q615AHR$322 19 5440 39d 0G` @7Gm>8G>9G>:G>;G><9HL>=9V>>GvGv(pGhG ,`GDhGPXG< 0G,8@  p G@Gh@ p  H@ H h@p,H@ Hh@p8H@Hh@pDH$@H,h@pPH2@H7h@H>XxHNP`8'HQ`8%,HX8HqPH|( 8H(,8H8PHDPH`R` H`H H n@ j P( QH H( QH< j H(H,(HX(j,H(H,(j8H(H,(HX(H(jDH(H,(! j` H(H,($"#jn#H(!H,(%I8'I8I IIII I%I*I/I4I8I<I@IDIHILIO    ()cb  (j B P     82222222222222222""    N V V V V V__:__ _M9999F__/__/__999999Cancel01234RS232 Config.Install PrinterPrinter Type:Pixels/Line:Printer Port:Paper Type:Color:Quality:DotDaisyB/WColor1280960DraftFinalPrinterModemFeedSingleINSTALL PRINTEROKCancelRS232 PORT CONFIGURATIONBaud Rate:Parity:Duplex:Bits/Char:Strip Bit:Flow ControlXon/Xoff:Rts/Cts:19200NoneOddEvenFullHalf8765OnOffOnOffOnOffOKCancel1920096004800360024002000180012006003002001501341107550 CONTROL PANEL EMULATOR Control Panel,      8P&0                                                  "                    &<$,"(&,   . 4 , :   ^       jP Pp:"(" VD,  D0 ,       &*," ( *( *`,         D0>@H   $ $                          *prRH0000`x000000000H000000H CURRENT NOTES: Your Monitor on the World of Atari ================================================= Current Notes is a magazine for owners of Atari home computers. CN is published 10 times a year (monthly excl Jan. and Aug.) In addition to its 84 pages of Atari news, reviews and tutorials, CN introduces 10 or more ST disks (5 or morer Spectre disks as well) with each issue. CN disks are $4.00 each (10 for $35) plus $1 for every 6 disks for shipping and handling (maximum charge of $6.00 for S & H). The first 350 or so disks in the Current Notes Library are available on a CD-ROM disc for use with the Atari CD-ROM drive. Cost of the disc is only $79.95 plus $3.00 S&H. PD software may also be obtained on SyQuest 44 Mb disk cartridges. One cartridge holds approximately 100 floppy disks of data. Two cartridges are available: SyQuest 1: 112 CN Disks #347-#459 (July '89 to June '90), SyQuest 2: The Spectre Collection, CN #S01 - #S80 plus the full text of all CN Magic Sac and Spectre columns from March of 1987 through June 1990. Disk cartridges are $139.95 + $3.00 S&H. Keep up with all the latest Atari news by subscribing to Current Notes. Subscriptions are $27/year (or $47 for two years). Send check or money order to Current Notes, 122 N. Johnson Rd, Sterling VA 22170. You may call and use your MC or VISA cards if you prefer (703) 450-4761. too obtrusive for your taste, use the ICD adapter interface with a longer DMA cable or, alternatively, mount the interface board in a separate small box. The adapter board and box can be placed closer to the ST, and the hard drive case further away or under the desk. There is less limitation on length of the cable connecting the controller to the host adapter interface--4 to 6 feet should work fine. This ribbon cable is the largest in the system--50 wires--and power must also be supplied to the adapter board. If you assemble your own components, you will soon discover that costs for the right mounting hardware, the right size screws and other needed accessories quickly accumulate in typical nickel-and-dime fashion. Cables. Prices vary widely for ready made ribbon cables--from $4 to $10 for identical items. Recall that you will need 20 and 34-wire ribbon cables with edge card connectors on one end and box pin type plugs on the other. As mentioned previously, you will also need a 50-wire ribbon cable between the drive controller and host adapter interface boards. Ready made with connectors, this cable can list for as high as $20. The DB-19 mini plug cable that connects the adapter interface to the ST DMA port is furnished with the board. The Results. Once you pull everything together, chances are that nothing works. Although the Supra, ICD, Adaptec, and OMTI manuals are helpful, Murphy's law prevails here. Power supplies are relatively easy to check out with a DC Volt meter. However, pinpointing problems between the drive, controller, adapter, four to five cables and connections, the software, and last but not least--the operator/assembler--can be much more difficult. Hopefully, the controller and interface boards were not damaged by wrong electrical connections. For The Faint At Heart If all of these requirements seem overwhelming, there is a reasonable alternative--the kit! The ICD FA-ST kit contains everything you need except the drive mechanism itself. Included is the case, fan, 40 or 65 Watt power supply, host adapter interface board, Adaptec controller board, mounting hardware, cables, ICD software, and both Adaptec and ICD manuals. The case will hold two 3.5" or one 5.25" drive. The MFM Kit is $450, RLL $500, and SCSI (for drives with integrated controllers such as the Seagate ST-...N series) $370. Toad Computers offers a kit with controller and host adapter interface. Prices are $215 for MFM and $255 for RLL. A case with power supply is an additional $129. Tech Specialties offers a variety of kits, drives, boards, and custom cases. Choices range from a single component to a complete kit including drives. All components are tested prior to shipment--a significant factor to consider. If purchased separately, as many as five different suppliers may be involved in testing and exchange. In some respects there is more variety available from Tech Specialties than from others and the prices are competitive. Unfortunately, it can take a long time for Tech Specialties to deliver orders. Although this is a source with many offerings, your patience will be taxed. Kay Vaumund, President of Tec Specialties, is very helpful with technical support for everything that was "invented here." With careful shopping and price comparison, a complete 65MB RLL system can be assembled for between $765 and $875 compared to a list of $1145 - $1350 for the same capacity off-the-shelf system. The 65MB Seagate ST-277R and the 62MB MiniScribe MS-3675 are probably among the best buys per MB price. And don't feel reluctant about these capacities. I can well remember when just a few years ago someone exclaimed, "Who will ever need more than 64K bytes of RAM!" If you choose to plug-in and run, Table 2 provides a guide to list prices for complete drive systems (prices may vary because of recent supplier changes). For Further Pursuit There are some excellent articles in the December 1988 issue of STart magazine: a hands-on assembly review of the ICD FA-ST Hard Drive Kit by Steve Mortimer; "Hard Disk Roundup" by Dave Plotkin; and the first of a series by Dave Small, "Hard Disk Lore and First Aid". The two better books on the subject are Chris Bosshardt's Hard Disk Smarts, and The Hard Disk Companion by Peter Norton and Robert Jourdain. Although both are primarily for the IBM PC, they are among the very few popular books that cover the hard technical side of these drives. The GEnie ST Bulletin Boards are also rich with experience and guidance. Drop in on Page 475, Category 3, Topic 5, and Category 4, Topics 10, 23, 30, 51, 53, 59, and 82. For Magic Sac and Spectre users, visit Page 690, Category 7, Topic 10. And enjoy your new hard disk capabilities! * * * * * * * * * * HD MYTHS, PART 1 Hard Disks Myths and Mysteries Part 1 by David C. Troy [Reprinted from the October 1989 issue of Current Notes.] In between building hard disk drives and collecting the latest Lego toys from the McDonald's Happy Meals, I've found some time to write about hard disks. Being in the business of selling hard disks, I feel I have a pretty good idea of what the average user does and does not know about hard drives. People ask me questions about them all day long. The chorus and refrain of my life nowadays is, "Yes, it has a fan." So, in that light, let's get on with this. We need to first recognize that there are several fundamental topics when it comes to hard drives, ranging from the very general to the very specific. We will cover all of these topics in this series, beginning with the most general ones. Everybody who knows what a hard disk is, raise your hand. Good. That's almost everybody. How many of you own hard disks? About half. Great. How many of you want hard disks? Don't be shy, raise your hand. Ok, that's the other half. The first thing we need to determine is what exactly a hard disk is and if you need one. A hard disk is an expensive piece of hardware, and there's no reason to buy one unless you're relatively certain that you need one. Let's first see how one works. Hard Disks vs Floppies A hard disk works just like a floppy disk, in that data is stored and read by an electromagnetic read-write head on an oxide coated disk surface. Unlike a floppy disk though, the actual disk is made of metal (about 1/16" thick.) A floppy disk is made of a light, flexible plastic. Hence the names floppy and hard. Another difference is that typically, floppy disks have one or two read-write heads (single and double sided drives.) Hard disks can have many more than that because they frequently have more actual disks inside. Your average hard disk has two or three disks spinning inside and has four to six heads. Hard disks spin continuously. Floppy disks only spin when you want to access them. This fact gives hard disks their outstanding speed. You never have to wait for a hard disk to start spinning, so the head can zip to exactly the right place on the disk without any wait time. (Incidentally, the amount of time this takes is referred to as access time, and ranges between about 6 and 85 milliseconds.) Hard disks have tracks, just like floppy disks, but because you usually have more than one disk, and because they are arranged one-on-top-of-the-other, hard disk tracks are referred to as cylinders, and talking about a specific cylinder refers to the same track on all of the disks. Advantages of Hard Disks OK, now you know how one works. What does this mean to you? Well, a hard disk does offer a lot of freedom. Having several megabytes of contiguous and fast disk storage does make a lot of things easier. Do you have programs where you have to switch disks a lot? Do you find disk access painfully slow? Do you hate having to load your desk accessories and AUTO folder programs from the same floppy all the time? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then a hard disk is something you should consider. Hard Disks and GEM On the ST, the GEM operating system makes hard disk use rather easy and fun. The ability to have folders is what makes a hard disk work so smoothly on the ST. You can copy all of the files from your favorite programs into folders, each one bearing the name of that program. You then can access all those programs, with no disk switching, at amazingly high speeds. You can even put folders inside of folders. For instance, you could have a folder called GRAPHICS, and inside that folder have all of your drawing programs. Or a folder called CLIPART, and have all of your desktop publishing clip art in it. An AUTO folder on a hard disk means a lot--especially with a program like Superboot that manages all of your autoboot files and desk accessories. In this kind of environment, you can control what desk accessories and auto programs are loaded each time you turn on your machine, and you can keep all of the ones you use right there on the hard disk. No more having to remember which disks have what autoboot programs. There is a bug in TOS that makes accessing any more than 40 folders per session risky at best. It sets aside certain directory buffers, and it doesn't allow any more than 40. Hard disk use more frequently than not exceeds that 40 folder limit, and you need to have a program (FOLDRXXX.PRG from Atari--CN library #221) in your AUTO folder that sets aside more directory buffers, thus eliminating this problem. Hard Disk Partitions Besides the folder system, hard disks can be divided up into several small "drives" called partitions. I say "drives" because the ST treats these partitions as if they were separate drives. On the ST, you can have up to 12 partitions, each one having a maximum size of 16.77 megabytes. (This will change as soon as TOS 1.4 is released. Then, the maximum size of each partition will be 32 megabytes, or even higher--a firm answer is not available on this yet.) The gist of this is that currently, you're limited to about 201 megabytes. But for most people, that's not really a limit, it's more of an unreachable ceiling. This partitioning system can be used in many different ways. You could use it to organize your programs, similar to the way folders are used. You could put all your games on one partition, all your autoboot software and desk accessories on another, and all of your many accounting packages on another. You also use partitions when working with the popular IBM and Mac emulators. For instance, with the Spectre or Magic Sac, you can set aside a portion of your hard disk specifically for use with that emulator. Then, your machine will behave just like a Mac with a hard disk attached. GEM will not interfere with this partition, and the emulator will not touch the Mac partitions. You can also set up an IBM partition, which will allow you to place IBM programs on your hard drive. Because of the compatibility of the ST and IBM disk formats, you can even keep ST and IBM files on the same partition--this would allow you to load pc ditto from the same partition that you then boot PC-DOS from. This is really convenient. Removable Hard Drives Another aspect of hard drives is removable media hard drives. Three companies currently have removable media products: Toad Computers, Carter Graphics, and Supra. The first two have 44 megabyte removable hard disks, basically identical to the gee-I-think-we-should-release-it-only-in-Europe Megafile 44 from Atari. These are really handy because you can have basically unlimited capacity from your hard drive, and even dedicate whole cartridges to Macintosh or pc ditto, for less than $1,000. Supra sells a drive, the FD10, which is a 10 megabyte drive that uses very high density floppy disks. The disks for that cost less than the 44 megabyte cartridges, but the drive is about the same price. CD-ROM Drives Atari should be shipping its CD ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) player real soon now (RSN --all Atari dealers know this acronym all too well.) CD-ROMs are a little slower than hard disks, and as their name implies, you can't write to them. All sorts of swell reference materials, although mostly for business, are available for IBM PCs on CD-ROM right now. Prices Now you have a better idea of what a hard drive can do for you. But what's available and how much should you pay? A lot of vendors sell hard drives, ranging in price from $500 for about 20 megabytes to close to $2,000 for drives with special features. Because of the 200 megabyte limit of the ST, it is unusual to find a drive priced over about $1,500 based on capacity alone. Usually, these drives have special features like extremely fast speed or rack-mounting. The best hard drive values lie in the $700-$900 range, offering as much as 85 MB for under $750, or 100 MB for around $900. The removable media drives sell for $900-$1,000. I think this gives you enough information to start considering hard drives in general, and maybe enough to know what to buy, or at least to begin your research. Talk to friends, family, and computer geeks with your new-found knowledge. They can give you some more advice. We'll be back next month covering other exciting topics, like drive size and its relationship with satisfying computing, drive speed, and even fans! * * * * * * * * * * HD MYTHS, PART 2 Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 2 by David C. Troy [Reprinted from the November 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Hello again! I speak to you now after a thoroughly refreshingly successful WAACE Atarifest, feeling quite good about life in general. So many neat people to see! I even got to give talks on hard disks. Dave Small, Jim Allen, Sig Hartmann! Swell people were everywhere! So now, here we are again, and I will pick up where we left off last month--I had you convinced you needed a hard drive or a hard drive derivative, and how much you should pay. Now I want to concentrate on features of hard drives, and how they affect you. How Much is 1.75 Inches? The physical size of hard drives, I find, is a truly mystical topic for some people--they can't quite figure it out. I'm not sure exactly why this is always a stumbling block. Not to pick on the ones who have this disability, because I realize it's genetic, but people call me up, wondering if 5.25" hard drives have built-in 5.25" floppy drives, and if 3.5" hard drives have built-in 3.5" floppy drives. Of course, the answer is no. The real deal is this--and I will put this in historical, evolutionary terms so that the progression makes sense--first, there were eight inch floppy drives. Then they had very large (12" and bigger) hard disks. When home computers became more popular, 5.25" floppy drives became prevalent. When hard drives became available for home computers, they were made to fit in the holes left for or by 5.25" floppy drives. As time went on, 5.25" hard drives shrank to half their height (although some very large capacity drives are still available as full heights.) As computers became smaller, drives did too, and hard drives shrank, as floppy drives did, to a 3.5" size. So, now, what has distilled out of all that mess is half and full height 5.25" drives, and half height 3.5" drives. The difference is the diameter of the disks used in the drives. Which is better? Well, each has its merits, and it is a tradeoff. The 3.5" drives consume less power, run cooler, but because of their smaller size, hold less data than 5.25" drives. Because they are small, they do offer a fair amount of mounting versatility. For instance, in the ICD FAST case, you can have two 3.5" drives, but only one 5.25" drive. In many other cases, however, you can have two 5.25" drives. Both 5.25" and 3.5" drives are designed to last basically the same amount of time. So, while I can't give you a definite recommendation, one over the other, I can tell you to weigh these various properties based on your specific needs. Drive Life Let's look a little more closely at how long hard drives last. Just to give you an idea, all Seagate hard disks are rated at 30,000-35,000 hours mean-time-between-failures (MTBF). They are given a service life of five years, but you probably have a 50-50 chance of it lasting significantly longer than that. These numbers hold true for most drives available in the home arena these days. Drive Speed How fast is a hard drive? Well, I mentioned last time that drive access speeds range from 6 ms to 85 ms (about 40 ms is average). Access time is the average time that it takes for the drive head to travel from wherever it is to wherever it should be. This has to do with the motor that is used to move the head and how it works. Cheap motors move the head slowly--more expensive motors move the head more quickly. As you can see, access time is not the thing that necessarily determines how fast your hard drive is in everyday life. If you have to do a lot of continuous drive access to many different files, where the head has to move around a lot, then access time will play a significant role in the speed. If, however, you have to read one big file for a long time, transfer speed is much more important. Access time, therefore, is only one of the aspects of a hard drive you should consider when considering speed. Transfer speed ranges from around 350 to 1000K per second. Average transfer speed is about 400K per second. I would pay more attention to this than access speed. Of course, data rate is affected by access speed, and drives with higher access speeds frequently are engineered to have higher transfer rates. People ask me about the difference between the Seagate 28 and 40 millisecond access time drives of the same capacity (both the ST157N-0 and the ST157N-1 are 50 meg drives but one has a 40ms time, the other a 28ms time), and they both have the same transfer rate. Unless you do a lot of moving around from file to file continuously, or are just a psychotic, the faster drive probably wouldn't be necessary. SCSI, MFM, & RLL That's what people THINK these popular hard disk protocols are called. "So, you need the MFM controller for a MFM hard drive?" or "What does SCSI stand for?" or "RLL has higher capacity, right?" SCSI, popularly pronounced "scuzzy," stands for Small Computer Systems Interface. MFM is for Modified Frequency Modulation. RLL is for Run Length Limited. SCSI is what comes out of all ST host adapters (a host adapter converts from ATSCI (DMA) to SCSI) and hard drive controllers. Drives with imbedded controllers hook up through SCSI. SCSI is characterized by a 50-pin connection. MFM and RLL controllers convert SCSI to yet another protocol known as ST506/412. MFM is a generally reliable but relatively low capacity way to store things. You get 17 sectors per track, as a rule. RLL gives you 26 to 34 sectors per track, and is somewhat riskier because you are fitting more into smaller space. But drives that are certified for RLL should work reliably. RLL is faster than MFM. I won't say too much about MFM & RLL as they are dying out as protocols of their own right now, perhaps to make a return when the technology changes a little. SCSI is currently where it's at. Drive manufacturers have discovered that implanting a controller in a drive cuts down on cost for them and for everybody, as separate cards and cabling are not required. Seagate Technologies, for example, has a whole line of "N" drives (ST157N, etc.) which have built-in controllers, and are very fast (because they do not have to run through a separate controller). SSCI really does turn out to be more cost effective than RLL or MFM. The removable cartridge hard drives you've heard about (from companies like Toad Computers) use a SCSI-based SyQuest disk drive. The ICD FAST drives currently all use SCSI-based Seagate drives. Again, this is because of price and speed. That's All for Now, Kids Well, this should give you some more fuel for your quest for your perfect hard disk. Again, question, read, study, and react. Now that you have some more facts you can make more informed decisions. That's pretty much all I want to talk about for now. Plus, I have to go to school. Being a full time college student and an Atari dealer simultaneously can be a real trip sometimes. So, next time, I will talk about building hard drives yourselves, and make some comments on host adapters and software for them. Until then, keep the homefires burning... * * * * * * * * * * HD MYTHS, PART 3 Hard Disk Myths and Mysteries, Part 3 By David Troy [Reprinted from the December, 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Did your dad ever just get up on a Saturday and rebuild a carburetor? Or did he ever build a radio from parts? My dad did. I recall countless fall weekends spent watching my dad soak little metal greasy parts of the Dodge Dart in paint thinner, insisting all the while that when he reassembled it, the car would be a lot happier. Usually gaskets leaked, and the car was never the same again, but dad at least knew exactly how the carburetor worked. Dad usually did a little better job with electronics. Heathkit gadgets are things I've grown up with, and I remember being told at about age four that those "little red lights" were light emitting diodes. Not until relatively recently did I know exactly what that meant, and why they were called diodes, but I at least had some idea how things worked, and that's because of my parents, and having that knowledge at an early age has instilled a morbid curiosity in me to know how lots of things work. Take hard drives for instance. The first time I tried to get a hard drive working for myself was about three years ago in December 1986. I had a 130XE and an MIO board, and I knew it was possible to put a hard drive on there, but unsure exactly how. ICD sold whole hard drives for use on them, but I figured, "Nah, I can figure it out." I found out I needed an SCSI controller and an ST506/412 hard drive, and a power supply. I already had a power supply. Before this phase I was a 720K floppy junky. My parents quickly became bored of my saying triumphantly that I had doubled my disk capacity. Usually it was me just unsuccessfully faking out a 1050, but when I got the 360 and 720K drives I really did double it. But by that time they assumed I must have at least 14 megabytes on a single floppy, as many times as I had doubled my disk capacity. But that aside, back to the story. I picked up a 10 megabyte MFM Microscience HH612 hard drive for $99 from some clearing house, and I had a heck of a time formatting it on the XE. For a couple of days it acted like a five megabyte ramdisk. I'd copy stuff onto there but when I turned it off, it would forget everything it knew. Plus it was only five megs. But finally I got it to work right, and wow what a day that was! I have been a hard drive junky ever since. The ST Days I got my ST in January 1986, and thought that a hard drive would be something that would be out of reach for a very long time. So, I bought SF314's and lived with slow floppies. When I got the MIO hard disk in December, I said to myself, "Self, this is dog food. Why can I have a hard disk on my pokey 8-bit and not on my longer lower and wider ST?" I compared the pinouts of the MIO with the pinouts of the DMA (ACSI--Atari Computer Systems Interface) and concluded that they were similar, and all that someone needed to do was build a board that made the DMA port talk to a SCSI controller, and it would work. I didn't know at the time that this was how the Atari and Supra drives worked, but shortly after, I guess around January or February of 1987, ICD came out with their ST Host Adapter, and after building a few systems, I quickly became the town expert on ST hard drives. So, what the hell. I liked building hard drives, and being an Atari dealer, I made money at it. So, everything was great. Kits & Things I had the fortunate experience of building my own ST hard drive, an experience which has catapulted me into all sorts of questionable fame and even more questionable fortune, what with Toadfile 44's and all. A lot of people still want to build their own hard drives. The same things are still necessary: 1) A hard drive mechanism, 2) a controller (imbedded or otherwise), 3) a power supply, 4) a host adapter, 5) a case (optional for Indiana Jones types), and, lastly, 6) cabling (things like to be connected.) A morbid curiosity is recommended, although optional, but it will be acquired involuntarily through the process of "building it yourself." I will give you this advice though. In this age of disposable cars and deteriorating ozone, don't try to build a hard drive from scratch unless you already have one or more of the major component parts. ST hard drives are one of the few cases in which the parts will cost more than the whole, especially if you shop around. If curiosity still kills you, get a pre-assembled drive, take it apart and soak the parts in paint thinner, and hope the gaskets don't leak, and at least then you'll know how it all works. With that in mind, let's look at these parts and see how they work together. Host Adapters These are not special eating utensils for ticks. This name has always conjured up this sort of an image for me; actually their function is quite different, but can still be categorized as "interfacing." As I mentioned a second ago, a host adapter goes from DMA (ACSI) to SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface). (See last month's installation of this series for more information on SCSI, MFM and RLL.) There are several host adapters available for the ST--ICD's, Supra's, Berkeley Microsystems', Atari's, and a couple of other ones I don't know about. Their function is all the same, but some are neater than others, work better, and have better software. Although I cannot claim this to be a strongly comparative review, I feel the ICD is your best bet with the Supra making a strong second. They seem to have the best software, in terms of ease of use, and the ICD even has a clock. Choose for yourself though. Read up, call people, question, think global, act local and react. Controllers, or Lack Thereof Functionally, a hard drive controller's job is to convert SCSI into something a hard drive can understand, like where to put the heads and what data to put there. SCSI just knows about data and not about heads and cylinders. So, that's the controller's duty--to tell the hard disk where to go. One might ask, "Why not have a board with a host adapter and a controller combined?" Well, the answer is, SCSI can be used to talk to other devices besides hard drives, like tape backups, optical drives, and ethernet cards, just to name a few. That aside, let's look at hard drive controller connections. As we said, their input is SCSI, and their output is ST506/412 (a standard created by Seagate.) The ST506/412 interface is characterized by a 34-pin and a 20-pin connection. Most controllers can handle two hard drives, and they have one 34-pin connector and two 20-pin connectors. They share the same 34-pin output (connectors are daisy chained onto one cable) and they use separate 20-pin outputs. Controllers should be matched to the hard drive used by their rating as MFM or RLL (see the previous article in this series for an explanation.) "Why not have a hard drive with a built in controller?" Why not? Lots of companies do, and they are cheaper and faster than ST506/412 drives even when using the fastest controllers. The drives with built-in controllers are called SCSI drives, because they have a SCSI input (50-pin array) connector right on them. There is no need for a separate controller, even when adding drives to the system. Just add another SCSI hard drive. Neet-o keen, eh? Electricity and a Box In order to make all of these wonderful components be complete, you need to have electricity. The hard drive mechanism, the controller (should you choose to accept it), and the host adapter all need power. Hard drive power supplies (the same as floppy disk power supplies, incidentally) put out +5V and +12V. They have funky shaped molded plastic four pin connectors (two grounds). Typically, you'd like to have about 30 watts on hand for a given hard drive and its paraphernalia. As far as a box goes, I say follow your heart. You need to assemble things in such a way as not to short anything out, or have any one component cause its neighbor too much radio interference. Other than that, whatever makes you happy is what works. You can buy pre-made hard drive cabinets that have built in power supplies. That's usually a reasonable way to go. An IBM PC power supply and a wine box work pretty well, though. Breathing Life into the Beast Once you have all of these components connected together, you need to make it work. Formatting and partitioning is what is required. This sets up the drive so the ST knows where everything is, and it divides the drive up into sections that behave as separate disk drives. This can be easier said than done, and if you are having troubles, chances are your connections are backwards somehow, or just slightly wrong. Once the hardware is set up right, formatting and partitioning is a breeze and a delight. Then you're ready to go, just as if you had bought a hard drive already assembled. Wow. Gosh. Well, in this series I've tried to tell you everything you need to know about hard disks, and I hope you understand a little better how things work. Unfortunately, I could ramble on for quite a long time to try to answer every question you might have. Instead, I think I will ramble on for just one more issue, and try to tie up any loose ends. In fact, if you have a question or an idea about hard disks which you would like addressed, please send it to me. (We'll have an extra amount of time since there is no January issue.) Send your questions to: David Troy, 556 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. Severna Park, MD 21146. I'd prefer you write rather than call, so I can have something tangible to refer to and answer in the next article. Well, happy hard driving, and on second thought, don't disassemble a hard drive and soak it in paint thinner. The gaskets always leak. * * * * * * * * * * HD MYTHS, PART 4 Hard Disk Myths & Mysteries, Part 4 by David C. Troy (c) 1989 [Reprinted from the Jan/Feb 1990 issue of Current Notes.] I have just finished a four day marathon writing spree, completing a forty-odd page manual for our hard disk products, so I am simultaneously primed for and tired of writing about hard disks. But, I promised I would finish up our three part series, and this being the fourth part, I think it's about time. I said I would tie up any loose ends. Well, I was right. There are several loose ends, plus some cool questions from interested readers which I would like to address. And, a surprise! Interleave What is interleave? You've probably heard about it, and if you haven't, you will, and will wonder what the heck it is. Here's the deal. On a disk, you have circular tracks. Tracks are divided into sectors (arcs of the circle). In a perfect world, sectors would be laid out just like the numbers on a clock, and the computer could read data quickly enough to read one sector after another as the disk spins at 3600 rpms. This scenario is what is referred to as 1:1 interleave, where consecutively numbered sectors are laid out contiguously in a track. Enter: Slow IBMs. Because many machines (particularly PC XTs) can't transfer data quickly enough, a new scheme was created. The reason was, if sectors were contiguously arranged, as the slow computer read the first sector, by the time it got done thinking about it and was ready to read another sector, the second sector had already gone by and a near complete revolution was required to get to that second sector again. So, why not move the second sector a little further from the first one? This way, after the computer read the first sector, and it thought about it, the second sector would be right where the head was. How handy. In between the first two consecutively numbered sectors, you put another sector (like the 14th one for example) which makes sense based on the speed of the disk. This situation is 2:1 interleave, where you have one sector between two consecutively numbered sectors. You can put as many sectors as you want between consecutively numbered sectors, and the ratio increases accordingly. The ST is capable of handling 1:1 interleave. The place that you've probably heard interleave come up is with Seagate 296N (and 277N, too, I believe) drives, which are hardwired (in ROM) to do a 2:1 interleave. This is specifically for the accommodation of slow PCs. You'd think, "Gosh, if that drive only does 2:1 interleave, then why should I use it on my ST if it can do 1:1?" Well, the answer is that the ST can do 2:1 quite handily, and you still get a very fast approximate 500K per second transfer rate. That's all I want to say about interleave. Questions? Call me. Backing Up People ask me, "Dave, what do you do about backing up?" Not a great deal is what I usually tell them. Maybe I'm a rebel, but I don't have too much to lose. Hard drive backup is not a compulsory task dictated by gods or laws. The amount to which you backup your hard drive should directly reflect your fear of losing what's on it. I don't have anything too earth shattering on my hard disk drive. The only stuff that I consider worthy of backup are things that I write or obtain over a modem. I mean heck, where did the other stuff come from? The stork? I don't think so. It came from my floppy collection. My floppy collection is a big pile of backups. So, if you have a 500 page document or piece of source code that is your life's work, then that is worth backing up, many times, for that matter. Image backups and large hierarchical file backups are OK if you have a delicate ecological structure to your hard drive, with layers upon layers of artfully juxtaposed folders. Image backups are great for alternate operating systems. But my personal hard drive resembles more of an ST-only heap. That's just me though. If you must image backup, the removable cartridge hard drives (available from certain companies) and the tape backups are definitely the way to go. For file backup Turtle and a heap of floppies works great. And for backing up just your treasured creations and downloaded graphics demos, about four floppies usually do the trick for me. Viewer Mail I received a few questions from our readers, and I thought I would try to answer them, as best I could, or at least reassure you that they were unanswerable. First off, someone wanted to know how the busy light works. The answer is, no one knows for sure. I tried to get schematics from a couple of manufacturers and they wouldn't budge. There are a lot of things that can make the busy light blink: a read, a write, an ID request--the list goes on. Someone wanted to know why the access time of some drives goes down after several hours of use. I have heard this to be true, but have empirically observed this phenomenon very rarely. I suspect it is just because heat buildup in the drive itself causes minute swelling and thus more resistance. I don't know. Just a guess. If you have noticed this though, I would not worry about it. It's just the way the hard drive works. Should you park the heads on an autoparking drive or not? The official answer from one manufacturer (Seagate) is no, and that it can cause damage. I have done this before and not suffered any adverse effects, but why do it? If the drive is autoparking, there is no need to park it. So if you're wondering if you should, don't. Clay Miller of Idaho Falls, Idaho wants to know how to hook a second drive up to his Supra 20 Megabyte drive. "To add another drive, it looks like I need a case, power supply, 25 pin to 50 pin external cable, a 50 pin to 50 pin internal cable, embedded controller SCSI drive and power. Is this right?" Yes it is. Just set that up, (according to my instructions in last month's "Build It Yourself" column) and you're essentially ready to go. But, SCSI addresses become an issue here. In fact, let me expound on that subject a second. Any device which uses the DMA port on the ST must have a unique SCSI address (0-7). Most hard drives use SCSI 0. The Atari Laser Printer uses 7, and sometimes 5. The clock in the ICD host adapter uses SCSI 6. If you add a second hard drive (with a separate controller) you must give it a unique SCSI address, like 1 (not 0, or 6 if you have an ICD host adapter). You just put a jumper on that new drive, and it will be SCSI 1 like magic. There is another parameter, called LUN (for logical unit number) which has been baffling multitudes of unsuspecting hard drive users. LUN is a distinction which has no meaning when talking about SCSI drives. LUN is used to differentiate between different ST506/412 drives which are hooked up to one controller. For instance, most controllers can handle two drives. To tell the difference, one is set as LUN 0 and the other is set as LUN 1. SCSI drives with embedded controllers each have their own personal controller, which can't run a slave drive. Therefore, they are always LUN 0. Those are the questions I received which I deem swell enough to answer. Birth of a Feature I think we've pretty much exhausted the whole hard drive subject, so it's time to move on to something else. So, starting next month, (actually in October, if you include this series) my column will be entitled Myths & Mysteries (sound OK to you Joe?) and it will be a general interest feature with questions and answers from concerned readers. We will cover the whole range of ST hardware and software. I will try to answer as many questions as I can per month, and throw in a couple of interesting stories and tidbits. I don't claim to be a great oracle or anything, but being an Atari dealer, I do know the answers to many questions, and for those I don't know, it will definitely do me good to do the research. And you, the readers will have the benefit of my research. So, really it's an open forum for the opening and widening of ST knowledge. If you have a question you would like answered (the chances are high--I only got three responses from my last plea for questions), please send it to me one of the following ways: the mail (best way) David Troy, 556 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., Severna Park, MD 21146, GEnie: Toad-Serv., or CompuServe: 72470,1605. So, that's the deal. I look forward to it. Next month: how to get stuff from an 8-bit Atari to the ST--and vice versa! * * * * * * * * * * HD BACKUP Hard Drive Backup Technologies A Survey of Your HD Backup Options: Comparing the Toad 44, Fast Tape Backup, DVT/VCR, and Software Backup Utilities Turtle and Diamond Back by John Barnes [Reprinted from the December 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Backing up a hard disk drive is a lot like flossing your teeth. It's good for you, but it is a pain to do it. Lost files can be almost as bad as lost teeth. Keeping extra copies of files is, however, essential because, "When it comes to hard drive failure, the question is not IF but WHEN." A hobbyist will be frustrated by the loss of weeks or months of work while a businessman may have to find another way to make a living. The classic method of backing up an Atari hard drive has been to copy the files onto a stack of floppy disks. When backing up is that much trouble, there is a tendency to avoid it altogether. As the default capacity for a hard drive package moves from 20 megabytes on up to 30, 40, and even 80 megabytes, the problem gets even worse. Within the last year we have seen several new pieces of hardware for Atari users that greatly reduce the pain involved in keeping one's hard disk backed up properly. This article surveys the new hardware choices that are available and compares them with the older methods for backing up to floppy disks. New software for handling backups to floppy disk will also be covered. FAT City After using Beckenmeyer Development Tools' Hard Disk Sentry regularly, I am willing to bet that many problems with hard drive data loss are attributable to damaged directory information. The directory information is organized by a group of data called the File Allocation Table (FAT for short). It gets messed up when a program crashes or the power fails while writing to the disk. Many of these failures are recoverable and there are a number of products available, in addition to Hard Disk Sentry, to diagnose these problems. ICD is issuing a new one and I believe that Michtron's Turbo Kit has yet another version. It is also essential to have a fix for the "40 Folder Problem." This arises because TOS goes bananas when a user opens more than 40 folders in a computing session. It is easy to do this when backing up a hard drive partition with only a modest number of folders. Rainbow TOS supposedly fixes this problem (there are also indications that it does not). There are a number of software fixes, including FOLDRXXX, the autoboot program, and the new ICD hard drive boot software. I suspect that I messed up FAT's pretty regularly before I starting using the FOLDRXXX fix. Keep it Tidy The first step in maintaining a collection of files is to keep it tidy to begin with. Related material should be grouped into folders rather than spread willy-nilly across several disk partitions. File dates are important, too, and users who do not yet have Rainbow TOS will also need to install some sort of fix to ensure that the datestamps on files are preserved when performing copies. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to determine whether two files with different dates are, in fact, identical. There is a PD tool called QC that can be used to match files, and this is a big help in avoiding unnecessary duplication. Other tools that help a lot in managing file collections include NeoDesk, Universal Item Selector, and MultiFile. These give you easier access to your disk directories and other disk maintenance functions, all of which help in knowing what you have in the first place. The Medium is the Message The new hardware devices for performing backups range from removable hard disk cartridges to a gadget for converting a VCR into a tape drive to a streaming tape drive system. Each of these is supported by appropriate software. Each medium is suited for a particular niche in the market. DVT - Hard Drive to VCR Let's begin with the cheapest hardware alternative. Users of large minicomputers are already aware that VHS videotapes are capable of storing something like two Gigabytes (2,000 megabytes) of computer files. These devices cost around $8,000 for a DEC MicroVAX. They are attractive because the user is not required to swap reels of 9-track magnetic tape, thus permitting the backup process to operate unattended at the end of each day. Based on the rates at which these machines can read data from their hard drives I would guess that it might take a number of hours to fill up a VHS cassette this way. Seymour-Radix has introduced a gadget about the size of a matchbox that plugs into the cartridge port of an Atari ST computer that is supposed to accomplish something similar. Their DVT VCR Hard Drive Backup System can be gotten at retail for just under $200. While the price is certainly attractive the software for the device needs (and, according to a spokesman for Seymour-Radix, is getting) a lot more development. For that reason the comments in the following section should be taken with an eye toward their coming update. We wish them the best of luck in their continued development work. I tried backing up a smallish partition with about 3.5 MB of data in 440 files. The backup took 7 1/2 minutes. I could reasonably have expected to spend about 30 minutes to back up 12 MB. When backing up entire hard drive partitions, the operator starts the tape running continuously and then lets the system read in bunches of files and write them out to tape. The documentation labels these bunches as "file bundles." It appears that each bundle holds about 720 Kbytes of data (something less than one double-sided floppy). I built a large file by concatenating together several copies of a medium sized file and the backup choked on it. This is not acceptable because it is easy for output files from some applications to grow into the megabyte range. Since nothing is being written to the date while the program is reading in new files, the bundles are separated by large gaps of blank tape. These gaps play an important role when it comes time to restore files, as we shall see later. The DVT hardware is obviously operating on the margin of reliability, as I discovered when recording on a VCR Tape at a slow speed. It seemed much more reliable when I recorded at a higher speed, where imperfections in the tape are less likely to obscure data. Seymour Radix's warnings about making sure that you have a good signal and good tape have to be taken seriously. Based on my estimate of 7 1/2 minutes for 3.5 MB, I would say that a DVT tape with a two hour running time could hold about 40-50 MB. This might amount to about 60 or 70 "file bundles." My salary from Current Notes does not pay for the kind of research I would have needed to do to test this. The manual warns the user to be totally meticulous in choosing tape and in caring for the VCR. The user is also warned to test the backup by "verifying" the tape, a procedure that takes about the same amount of time as writing it does. All of these precautions appear to be necessary even if they are time-consuming. When restoring files it turns out that the tape moves much faster than the program does. The operator must, therefore, wait for the program to read in a file bundle, then stop the VCR while the bundle is being processed. Restoring my 3.5 MB took about 35 minutes. A hard disk partition of 14 MB or so would have taken over two hours to restore. This would have tried the patience of the biblical Job. Individual files can be restored by positioning the tape to the proper bundle, as verified by scanning the bundles without restoring them. People who want to play this game should use a VCR with a good footage readout so that they can have some idea of where they are on the tape. Unfortunately, the software does not provide for printing out (or, better yet, saving a file with) a log of the backup. This would allow the user to fast-forward to the approximate location and greatly facilitate restoring particular files. Seymour-Radix states that it is working on this and that it hopes to make the restoring process much more automatic in the not too distant future. The technically inclined user might want to try recording a large file with a known bit pattern and playing it back through the TV set. The truly creative might be able to make quite a game of this. All in all, I found the DVT, in its present state of development, a very tedious device to use. Hard Drive to Hard Drive Back when I started to look for something better than floppies for backing up my hard drive, a Current Notes colleague suggested using a second hard drive on the theory that software or hardware failures would be unlikely to affect both drives at the same time. This idea might be attractive to some people who are mechanically inclined and who can get drive mechanisms cheaply. It is a fairly simple matter to format the second drive so that its partitions match those of the first one. The simplest method for creating a mirror image of a hard drive partition is to drag the disk icon into an open window on a partition (preferably on another drive) that has been zeroed out and wait for TOS to do its thing. This can easily take 45 minutes for a 14 MB partition because TOS seems to access the directory often when doing a copy of even a single file. If you happen to have the FAST Tape Backup from ICD you can use their TAPE.PRG to copy files from one hard disk partition to an empty one in a very short time indeed. I tried it with a partition containing 4.6 MB and the elapsed time was around 40 seconds. That is painless backing up. ICD achieves this blinding speed by totally bypassing TOS's file management. This approach is especially good on those days when, for whatever reason you decide, you want to reformat your hard drive. Backup Software Intelligent software that looks for only those files that have been altered since they were last backed up makes "incremental backups" a relatively quick operation. IBBACKUP from IB Computers was the first product that I am aware of to make a stab at this. It was able to set the "archive bit" that is part of each disk file's attributes as it backed up the files. Unfortunately, TOS versions earlier than "Rainbow" did not always clear the archive bit when a file was rewritten by an application, thus causing the incremental backup process to miss potentially important files. GOOD Backup, from Tid Bit Software Engineering Company, takes account of this with a pretty sophisticated approach. GOOD maintains a database of the files that have been backed up to a hard drive partition or to a collection of floppies. The database contains the creation date, the size, and a computed checksum for each file. If either the creation date or the file size of a file on an active drive partition fail to match those in the backup file collection (called a save set), the file is copied into the saveset. Files whose names do not appear in the saveset database are backed up while those that have been deleted from the active drive are removed from the saveset (these backup and deletion options are actually controllable by the user). The result is a saveset whose contents match those of the active drive very closely. If the user wants to verify this he can request that all files on the active drive have their checksums recomputed and tested against those in the saveset database. This adds a modest amount of time to the incremental backup process, but the peace of mind is worth it. Pha$ar and dBMAN are two programs that fail to change either the creation date or the archive bit when they rewrite some of their files. The files produced by these programs are direct access files and their attributes get changed only when they grow bigger. GOOD is very smart about spotting changes in them. The user can also force a date change by "TOUCHING" the files with Universal Item Selector or MultiFile (the latter allows groups of files to be TOUCHed while the former TOUCHes them one at a time). The likelihood that non-identical files can pass all of these tests is small and the user can have reasonable confidence that the saveset and its active file collection are truly identical. Since GOOD ignores the archive bit, it is possible to maintain duplicate savesets using quick incremental backups. It is a good idea to keep the duplicate saveset in a separate location from the working saveset if the files are truly important to you. Incremental backups by this method are so quick that there really is no excuse for failing to do them. A final feature of GOOD is its ability to interrupt a backup and pick up the thread in another session. This can be a real boon if something comes up to interrupt the process. This is possible because GOOD maintains a database of backup information as it goes through the process. This database file can also be reconstructed from the backup disks themselves Removable Hard Disk Cartridges Everything described in the previous section applies to the hard drives with removable cartridges introduced by Toad and others. The only difference is that one hard drive mechanism can service multiple platters. This provides a considerable degree of flexibility because the user can utilize additional cartridges for projects unrelated to backing up the primary drive. The cartridges can also be removed to another site for more secure storage. Disk librarians, businessmen, and tireless experimenters should find this a very attractive option. The price starts getting pretty steep, however. The drive mechanism is more expensive ($700 vs about $350) and the cartridges, at $100+ per, are not cheap either. It all depends on how important it is to have a security blanket. There has been some rumbling about the reliability of the drive mechanism, but SyQuest does provide a two year warranty. If the cartridges are kept under reasonable conditions and if a duplicate save set is kept for very important files, this scheme should afford reasonable security. Users who have multiple systems may want to package their removable hard drive kits in a separate case to make them more portable, although the most economical alternative is to build them into a spare slot in your regular hard drive case if you have room and a suitable SCSI host adapter. The cartridges certainly offer a lot more convenience than tape or floppies because it is much faster and easier to find files on them. The GOOD Backup utility appears to be the tool of choice for this medium because of its sophistication and its ability to do rapid, thorough, incremental backups. I received a review version of the software and I found a lot of problems. The developer has been extremely responsive and has made excellent progress in clearing up his problems. The current version that I have, while it is not perfect, is pretty reliable. I am certainly getting satisfactory results using it. GEM addicts may hate it, however, because of its use of IBM-like menus. The user interface could, indeed, use some improvement, most notably with provision for running the program in a batch mode to make unattended backups. The program should make use of the system item selector when building lists of files to be excluded or included. I am not a GEM addict and I find GOOD is extremely handy. Streaming Tape The FAST Tape Backup is the Cadillac of the devices reviewed in this survey. It is indeed FAST. At 30 seconds to back up 3.5 MB and 20 minutes to back up 70 MB, it blazes right along. It is supported by sensibly designed software, whose use is well documented. All in all, backing up your files at the end of a day is painless with this device. Rewinding the tape and searching for files in order to restore them is something that can easily be endured given the cost of lost files. Restoring files to a partition different from the one they originated on is a little tricky, but doable. I wish the restore options were a little more flexible with regard to wild-carding of file names. People who already own this device should be aware that the software revision level is up to 1.3. At around $800 retail, this device is definitely for the serious user. The unit requires special tapes that cost around $30 apiece. Each tape holds the equivalent of 250 floppy disks. The box is very well designed. Setting the SCSI device ID by means of a thumbwheel switch is a very thoughtful touch. The unit is quite rugged and it is light enough to be easily portable. It would be nice to have some sort of a special carrying case so that it could be easily moved around. The FAST Tape Backup is just what the doctor ordered for those days when you want to reformat or repartition your hard drive, provided that you make sure that you are using the file mode rather than the image mode for backing up. The image mode copies everything from a drive partition and you can only restore to a partition of the same size as the original. Floppy disks The high cost of backup hardware means that many people will continue to use floppies for this purpose. I also use them for archiving obsolete material and for preserving distributed software. The public domain program Turtle, which is now up to version 3, is a good inexpensive tool for this, and an informal survey of my acquaintances revealed that it is widely used. New software is available for restoring savesets created by Turtle and another piece of software, named Terrapin, is available for backing up files that are too large to fit on a single disk. Part of Turtle's attraction lies in its use of a RAM disk to build an image of the destination floppy before writing everything out in one burst. Turtle does not support backup from one hard drive partition into another, probably on the theory that the normal desktop methods are adequate for this. The saveset disks that Turtle creates are directly readable by TOS--a strong plus. Such commercial products as Flashback (Triangle Software Innovations by way of Eidersoft?) and HD Tools (Beckenmeyer) create closed savesets. This means that the only way to restore files is the way the publisher intended it to be done. There are no workarounds if the user should discover a bug in the software. I cannot really forgive the Flashback people for the fact that the disks their product creates look like empties when the directory is examined. It is too easy to make a mistake and inadvertently use one of these for a scratch disk, thereby destroying the saveset completely. Incremental backups can be done using the date stamp (backing up files created or modified after a certain date) or by changes in file size. Incremental backup is a highly desirable feature because it is most likely that only a few files will have been changed since the last backup. The work involved in backing up a small number of files is much less. Turtle and DiamondBack use the archive bit to determine whether a file should be backed up. These methods would be fine if date-stamping and the archive bit were reliable, but, in versions of TOS before "Rainbow," they are not. The GOOD backup utility can be told to verify a checksum for each file. The odds that the checksum will change if a file has been altered without changing its date or length are pretty good--a pretty sophisticated method. The saveset database file created by GOOD allows the program to delete obsolete material from the floppy disk collection and to reuse the space thereby created as it works its way along. With minor exceptions, it is easy to convert savesets made by Turtle and DiamondBack to GOOD savesets if one should wish to do so. Backup software that sets the archive bit may also affect other backup operations, but this is a small inconvenience given the lower cost of Turtle, which is perfectly adequate for the ordinary user. I have already mentioned Diamond Back. This is a new product distributed by Data Innovations Inc. It offers encryption and compression as optional components of the backup process. I frankly see no need to bother with encrypting a backup saveset. If you don't want anyone to steal your data, you should keep it away from them by locking it up in a safe place. You can always get someone to open a safe but you may never be able to reconstitute a forgotten encryption key. The disks that Diamond Back creates when compressing files for a saveset give garbled directory listings when you try to look at them. I don't think this is very functional. The time involved in compression is also considerable. If you want to compress files, do so with one of the regular utilities such as ARC or the newer ZOO. The latter has a number of advantages over ARC, but I need to do more research to see how well the system works. The files created by a standard compression routine (ARC also allows encryption) are at least identifiable entities that can be operated on out in the open. Diamond Back does create a listing file that contains the names of the files that have been backed up and the disk they are on if the user asks for it. This really should be the default mode because the listing is quite useful when searching for files. Diamond Back's incremental backup function is a misnomer because it really only backs up a subset of all files consisting of those whose creation date is after one specified by the user, ignoring older files that might have been moved onto the hard disk. The partial restore function is also not very functional because the user must have access to a list of file names in order to type them in (wild cards are, however, supported). Both Diamond Back and GOOD will split large files, pasting them back together when it is time to restore them. GOOD provides a wider range of options for carrying out the restore function and it only attempts to restore files missing from the active disk or which do not match those in the saveset. Cataloguing the Collection One of the most important tools in any library is the card catalog. So it is with disk libraries. There are several public domain and commercial tools for doing this. Michtron's SuperDirectory would be a fine one if it used disk volume ID's, if it worked on my Mega ST, if it were more polite about its memory usage, and if it provided me with an ASCII output file that I could manipulate by other means. The program is quick and its sorting and subsetting operations are very fast. Director, which I got from a START Magazine disk (Volume 3, No. 6, I think) is an excellent program for producing a list of all the files on multiple floppies, but it does not provide any sorting or subsetting functions. I used the ASCII file produced by Director as input to a set of dBMAN database procedures and this produces a quite satisfactory, if somewhat slow, scheme for maintaining a catalog. The system will be released to the public when I get around to finishing the documentation. It is not recommended for people who are afraid of command line input. The CAT3 program on ST Informer's PD Disk 1188 is similar to Director, but it does provide a sorted listing that would have to be reorganized for input to my dBMAN package. GFA Basic source code is provided with this one. The floppy disk database program from Saraware on Current Notes library disk number 276 is essentially useless because the data must be entered by hand, an extremely tedious process. Restoring Files All of the labor spent backing up goes for nought if it is not easy to restore a file that has gotten trashed or lost. This should be as simple as locating the file on the backup medium and reloading it and any cousins that may have gone astray. I have already commented on the laborious steps needed to do this with the DVT device. The FAST Tape Backup system provides pretty effective tools for this, although it would be nice to see support for wildcarding and directory backup. GOOD's saveset database allows it to restore things that actually need restoring with a minimum of fuss. The easiest method for restoring with Diamond Back (in the uncompressed file mode) and Turtle is to simply use the desktop or the Universal Item Selector to copy files off the backup disks into the proper places. There is a PD utility named Unturtle that will automatically generate the proper directory structures for restoring from Turtle savesets, but the need for this is somewhat reduced since Rainbow TOS is more tolerant of path name collisions on copy operations. Summary For my purposes, I found the GOOD backup utility to be the most useful tool available for performing backups to other hard drive partitions, particularly ones with removable media. The champ in terms of speed and convenience was ICD's FAST Tape Backup system. Choose the system that suits you best in terms of your time and your money, but be sure to work at keeping your hard drive backed up. * * * * * * * * * * SYQUEST 44MB DRIVE Carry-Out Hard Drive Platters The Syquest 44 MB Removable Cartridge Hard Drive Review by John Barnes [Reprinted from the October 1989 issue of Current Notes.] Hard disk drive users are a lot like chocolate freaks; they can never get enough. A new hard drive from Syquest Inc, of Fremont, CA, that features removable platters is a goody that is causing something of a stir. This product is especially interesting to Atarians because it will likely be the basis for Atari's MegaFile 44 unit (to be released real soon now) and it is already the base for the ToadFile 44 package that has been very successful for Toad Computer Products of Severna Park, Maryland. ICD, Inc., of Rockford, IL, is also marketing the drives and cartridges as add-ons for their FAst systems. ICD's host adapters and formatting software have represented the state of the art for Atari users for some time now and they appear to be fully supporting this unit. The Attraction The biggest promise that the removable cartridge offers is flexibility. The stuff that is cluttering up your hard drive does not have to sit there like a bump on a log when you want to do something else. If, for example, you use your machine for an electronic BBS, desktop publishing, and games you can reserve a cartridge for each of these uses and swap them as needed. Users of foreign operating systems like Spectre, pc ditto, OS-9, and UNIX can get the mass storage they need without having to give up room on their disk drives. Backups are always a source of insecurity to hard drive users ("it's not if it fails but when it fails") and any new gadget that promises them peace of mind is always welcome. The removable hard drive cartridge appears to offer a relatively painless way to make backups of important work frequently. Getting It Home I waved my credit card in front of Toad and persuaded them to part with a drive unit and three cartridges. They nicked MasterCard for about $970. I probably could have gotten the unit cheaper by going mail order, but the cartridges might have cost more. Besides, I wanted someone to bring the thing back to if I had problems. The operative at Toad offered to hook the thing up to a breadboard on their bench. It was just as well that they did, because a tiny part fell out. We hooked up another unit and it worked fine. Once I got a good look at the unit it was easy to see the distinguishing features: an opening about 3/8 of an inch high runs right across the front of the case, square button right in the middle below the opening, an ejector lever, and two LEDs. With power applied to the unit you simply orient the cartridge properly and push it firmly into the slot. The ejector lever pops into its latched position once the cartridge is all of the way in. A red LED flashes as the drive spins up. When the green LED burns steadily the drive is ready. It is permissible to remove power with the cartridge in place, but you must give the mechanism at least a minute to spin down before removing the cartridge. Failure to observe these precautions carries the risk of damage to the platter, the mechanism, or both. Getting It to Work Without going into too much detail I can say that the process of adding the drive onto my existing system was straightforward, involving only the manufacture of a new SCSI cable, mounting the drive in an empty slot in the case, and reconfiguring the SCSI bus address jumpers. This took quite a bit of fiddling until I realized that ICD's new formatting software package contains a utility program named IDCHECK that goes around and checks the addresses of all devices on the SCSI bus. IDCHECK proved its worth by providing the clues that allowed me to connect my SLM804 laser printer. For some still mysterious reason the Syquest unit did not want to work when it was given a bus address that was too close to my main Seagate ST251 hard drive. The laser printer turned out to be in position 5 rather than in position 7. ICD has a clock on the bus at position 6. Once all of this was sorted out, everyhting worked like a charm. The matter of bus harmony obviously needs work on somebody's part. Devices should be able to share the bus in complete comfort. The ICD folks, because they design host adapters, have to be more aware of this than anybody, and I suspect that this is a reason that they don't sell their tape backup in kit form. They do seem to stay on top of the situation, how-ever, and ICD host adapters users should check ICD's product support services to see what is new. Putting It To work Once the drive was formatted and all of the other system components were working together, it was time to put the new drive to work. The first thing I tried was dismounting and remounting the cartridge. After pressing the little button in the middle of the drive face, the red LED comes on while the drive is spinning down. Once the drive is spun down, pushing the eject lever to the right causes the cartridge to pop (rather forcefully) out of the drive. After reinserting the cartridge and letting the drive spin back up I accessed the directory of one of its partitions. A message blinked a few times in the upper right hand corner of the screen, indicating that the system has spotted the media change. I would not advise this move while in the middle of an application that is using the drive, however. Some applications that bypass the normal disk i/o may do strange things to directories. I next tried using it as a backup. The only software that I had to do this job was a copy of IBBACKUP from IB computers. This took about 25 minutes to move 500 files totalling 13 Mb from my C partition to an empty partition on the removable cartridge. This represents a transfer rate of about 80,000 bits per second, far below the rated capacity of the ST's DMA port and far below the likely capacity of the SCSI interfaces on the drives. The overhead of creating new directory entries and folders probably accounts for a lot of this. There may be more efficient software somewhere, but IBBACKUP does set the archive bit (which tells whether a file has been backed up) properly and an incremental backup (selecting only those files whose archive bit has not been set) is a very quick operation. IBBACKUP also does not mess up the file dates when it makes the copies, a strong plus. On balance, it looks like the backup function will prove very useful. Problems from software that modifies a file, but fails to clear its archive bit (DESKCART and PHASAR are two known examples) can be taken care of with the TOUCH function on the Universal Item Selector. Archiving files (saving those that are obsolete or of limited interest) should be done on floppies because it is much cheaper to do so. The 60 or so floppies that it takes to back up 44 megs of data cost about $40 vs 100+ for the removable cartridge. Using UNIX, in the form of the MT C-Shell, should not be a problem because this package uses the normal device handler for disk drives. This experiment is next on my list. OS-9 may be another problem. The only hard disk handlers that I have are for the Supra drive and the Atari drive. The ICD folks report that they have not yet gotten Microware Systems (the OS-9 folks) to cooperate on evaluating potential problems with OS-9 support of the ICD host adapter and formatting software. This project will have to wait awhile. Gadgets by Small is supposedly evaluating a Toadfile unit to see if it will work with Spectre GCR. This one is a wait and see situation, but if it can be made to work it will allow the user to use separate cartridges for Spectre and for GEM. The Macintosh world already uses the Syquest Unit and it will be interesting to see if cartridges can be moved back and forth between a Spectre system and a Mac. In summary, the removable cartridge seems to work and work well in the limited use I have made to date. I look forward to putting my clip art collection where it is easy to get at as well as to keeping my important correspondence and data files properly backed up. A Snake in the Grass? Since the removable cartridges are not sealed they must be more vulnerable to dust in the air, humidity, mechanical abuse, and other gremlins. Time will tell just how big a problem this is. In the meantime, take reasonable care and always keep the cartridge in its plastic shipping case when it is not in the drive. I have been using large DEC removable packs that are more than 10 years old with only a few real problems. The cost of the system is high. It begins to compete with fixed drives only when the total capacity gets up into the 100+ megabyte range. The thing is novel enough so that the price is likely to stay high while the price of fixed drives continues its steady decline. If I were to start from scratch in configuring a hard drive system I would use a 50 or 80 meg drive with an embedded SCSI controller and a removable drive as the backup. Value added retailers might like these units because they can configure and maintain their customers' software environment easily. Obviously, we are just at the beginning of exploring this thing and Current Notes will keep you posted as we search for better software and operating procedures. Keep Up the Good Work Tiny outfits like Toad Computers deserve our encouragement when, as in this case, they bring together the right parts, make a unit work, price it attractively, and bring it to market quickly. A medium-sized outfit like ICD earns itself a solid niche in the marketplace when it develops a good product like a host adapter and keeps it up to snuff in supporting the latest new applications. Only a small minority of Atari users will need these products and this need can easily be serviced by the little guys. Corporate giants who timidly test the waters, review the bottom line, and ask themselves "will it sell?" will always have trouble keeping up in this arena. The giants should learn that the pond needs both big and small fish and they should devote themselves to providing the innovations that cut across the entire breadth of the market and help define it for everyone. Collaboration instead of competition should be encouraged. * * * * * * * * * * REMOVABLE HARD DRIVES A Neophyte's Guide to the 44MB Removable Hard Disk Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Power Computing by Mike Heininger [Reprinted from the November 1990 issue of Current Notes.] Taking the Plunge One of the world's most stubborn floppy disk holdouts finally ran out of excuses two weeks ago when I succumbed to L&Y's great deal on a SupraDrive 44R Removable Hard Disk and joined the dizzy world of power computing. For a mere (!) $750, plus another $100 or so for power software, I turned my venerable TOS 1.0 1986 Atari 1040ST into something even finer. But as with most computer improvements, the external shoebox-like device (essentially the Syquest 44-megabyte removable hard disk cartridge drive) demands considerable learning investment before spewing forth productivity benefits. Does it work? Righteously. Am I pleased? Yes. Should everyone lust for one? Kowabunga, dude (meaning, I think so, but don't blame me if your unique circumstances are an exception). User Perspective As with all investments, examining personal needs is the first step toward establishing whether a hard drive, particularly with removable cartridge, is prudent or reckless. For years, my sons-in-law and other computer associates relentlessly preached hard drive, reminding me of that fearsome axiom that accompanies most life improvements: "Once you use one, you'll never go back." My journey to productivity nirvana started with a mouse. My Atari mouse control had always worked fine. But Susie and John at L&Y insisted a Golden Image mouse would make my life even more incredible. So I bought the sleeker mouse, tried it, and was not particularly impressed--it seemed maybe too lively. But lo and behold, after a lethargic interlude switching back and forth with the original Atari mouse, one day I realized all I had been using recently was the Golden Image mouse. Thus, do productivity enhancements creep into our lives ... mouselike. So I reconsidered other trendy computer power improvements. Surely, by now, intrepid industry pioneers had debugged them enough to attract conservative computerists like me, who use their Ataris primarily for things like writing, spreadsheets, music, and simulation games. I studied past issues of Current Notes. I interrogated user group gurus. I compared hypothetical expenditures with other options, e.g., DOS computers, laptops (DOS and Atari), laser printers, MEGA and Atari 1040STE. My overriding criterion was Atari's famous motto, Power without the Price. Since I am not a computer tinkerer--loathing programs that demand you take wrench in hand and get under the hood--I wanted something bug-free that would give maximum power improvement with minimum headache. In particular, I did not want to buy a vulnerable massive storage device that would take more time to learn and manage than it would repay in utility or peace of mind. Dollar per Megabyte Threshold To me, hard disks could never be cost effective until they reached the dollar per megabyte threshold. Some of the higher capacity hard disk drives for Atari finally achieved that milestone, e.g., 85 megabytes for $749. And then along came the 44-megabyte removable hard disk cartridge. The drive with one cartridge is $750--not cost effective in my book. But add a second 44-megabyte cartridge for $80 and you have 88 megabytes for $830. Bingo! Cost effective! A third cartridge provides 132 megabytes for $910. And a fourth ... ad infinitum. Of course, to properly manage all this storage takes some new software, another $100 worth or so. I bought Universal Item Selector III ($16) to improve desktop management, Hotwire Plus with Maxifile ($36) to run programs instantly from the desktop and to improve file management, GDOS+ ($28) to speed up files in programs such as Microsoft Write and Easy Draw that use the Graphics Device Operating System (GDOS), and Quick ST II ($14) to speed up screen display. I also had to find CN Utility Disk #21 ($4) for its FOLDRXXX.PRG to overcome the 40-folder limitation on my old TOS 1.0. And I probably should get MultiDesk ($18) to increase the number of desk accessories beyond six. See what I mean about hot-rodding the 1986 Atari 1040ST? Since all these programs warn that they may not necessarily work with some other programs, even depending on the sequence in which they are loaded in autoboot, this is not for the fainthearted or the impatient. I've even skipped TOS 1.4 so far because not all my old software will work with it. So how is this power computing neophyte doing after three weeks with the removable hard disk and all these software soup-ups? Always intrigued, often bewildered, sometimes frustrated, but overall: great. Improvements are not only noticeable, but impressive. Installing most of the software hotrods before getting the hard disk, I immediately got a much more responsive machine, especially with Quick ST II. After the hard disk was added, wow! My 1986 ST seems as responsive as much more expensive and elaborate office systems. Just How Fast Is It? Quick ST II includes a fun program called Quick Index with 11 benchmarks to measure speed improvements in CPU, disk drives, and screen text and graphics. Numbers over 100 percent indicate speed boost. The four CPU categories--memory, register, divide, and shifts--increase only with a hardware accelerator such as a 16 MHz board, which, so far, I am still resisting because I suspect it would hyperventilate much of my 8 MHz software, particularly games. But, look at these dramatic speed improvements that Quick ST II achieved for both hard and floppy disk drives in TOS 1.0: TOS text 330% TOS string 1,829% TOS scroll 177% TOS dialog 231% Then marvel at these fabulous speed improvements that the hard disk drive provides over floppy disk drives (floppy speed in parentheses): DMA 64k read 4,457% (100%) GEMDOS files 1,268% (74%) Which shouldn't be too surprising since the hard disk spins at 3,214 rpm compared to the floppy disk's 299 rpm. (Now all I have to do is get the finicky GDOS fonts to load properly with GDOS+ and I'll be all set.) Practical Enhancements Most of all, these measurements translate into very practical enhancements the way I use my programs. WordPerfect, for all its infuriating whims (bombing at least once a day in spite of going through many fixes), loaded easily on the hard disk once I again called the WP 800 number to be reminded I needed to add the hard disk WP folder name to the loading path. Incidentally, using folders is one of the main changes I have made since adding the hard disk. Before, I was content to list files DOS-style since even the 720k floppies didn't hold that many files. Now, with a hard disk, it definitely is folder time! I've been folder gun shy ever since a Mac II once bullied me into deleting a 30-file folder during its exit process. With WordPerfect, the once tedious floppy disk spell check (hunt, load, endure) now is almost fun on the hard disk, as is using the thesaurus (yet another disk I rarely bothered with in floppy). Other programs that load flawlessly on the hard disk and show dramatic improvements--particularly with Quick ST II--include Degas Elite, Spectrum 512, Geography Tutor, Flash, MS Write, and ST Writer. A few games are easy and improved on hard disk, e.g., Battlehawks 1942, MidiMaze (Kill a Happy Face), and Sim City. Problem Programs Unfortunately, much time has been wasted loading many programs that will not operate on hard disk or have quirks that require considerable more attention before they may or may not respond, e.g., VIP Professional, EasyDraw, Music Studio, EZ Score Plus, EZ Track Plus, lst Word, Financial Cookbook, Publishing Partner (fought with UIS III), Thunder, and Write 90. [Editors Note: Some of these work fine on hard disks, but, obviously, installation may pose some problems that a novice will have difficulty with. -JW] Equally disappointing is the inability of many games to work on a hard disk, usually due to copy protection. At least Atari users can be grateful that it is easy to override hard disk Drive C default loading for the recidivistic software that insists on loading from Drive A. Just hold down three keys on the left--control, shift, alternate--while cold booting and your program will load from Drive A. One associate claims that because some Macintoshes do not have this provision, many Mac games are useless with a Mac internal hard drive. Games that do not load from hard disk include Battle Chess (a real shame, considering its enormous graphics shuffling), Nicklaus Golf, SkyChase, Tetris, Battleship, Balance of Power 90, Chessmaster 2000, F-15 Strike Eagle, and Falcon. Games insisting on a key disk in Drive A to start include Gunship, Red Storm Rising, and Computer Guide to the Solar System (OK, latter category is education, not game). Obviously, there are many more programs yet to try and hundreds I don't own. The concern is that many programs require special handling to work properly on hard disk, and some won't work at all. Easy Installation The cartridge that came with the SupraDrive 44R was formatted (without partitions), so I got a quick look at how a hard disk operated. But because of my TOS 1.0 16-megabyte limitation, I promptly installed my second 44-megabyte cartridge and soon had it partitioned into four 11-megabyte icons: C for utilities, D for productivity, E for graphics and music, and F for games. Already I've already managed to take up 2 of the 11 megabytes in C, 5 in D, 8 in E, and 9 in F--24 of the 44 megabytes total. Since hard disk user friends warned me how quickly even large capacity hard disks can fill up (e.g., 80 megabytes seems to be a minimum for many users), one of my main reasons for buying the replaceable hard disk was to have unlimited growth capacity at reasonable cost. This seems to have been a wise decision. Powerful Shoebox The Supra 44R looks like a large dark beige metal shoebox 14 inches long, 7 inches wide, 3 1/2 inches high. Its fan is reasonably quiet and unobtrusive. The removable hard disks are 5 1/4-inch metal encased in plastic, and require the same careful handling as any 3 1/2-inch floppy. A hard drive utilities disk and a real-time clock are included, as is the ability to daisy-chain two or more DMA and/or SCSI devices (e.g., laser printer, CD ROM, other disk drives) to an Atari ST via ports on the back of the SupraDrive. Compared to floppy disk drives, applications are claimed to run three to 10 times faster on the SupraDrive 44R, which allows as many as 12 partitions. According to some ads, these Syquest removable hard disk drives have 25 ms access time and nearly a 600k/s transfer rate, compared to the 24ms, 28ms, and 40ms rates of most fixed hard disk drives for the Atari. Toadfile, for example, offers several varieties of the 44-megabyte removable hard disk, including many combinations with various fixed hard disk drives. Turner Atari ST Books Speaking of productivity enhancement and sources of excellent hard drive information, there still is nothing like a good book. The best I've found on the Atari ST are Ralph C. Turner's The Atari ST Book and his sequel, Intermediate and Advanced Atari ST Subjects (each $16). He has a gift for ferreting out the obscure and making it obvious. As one non-hard disk example, have you ever printed out your screen only to find you've lost the 25 percent on the right? Well then, as Turner says, just click on the Atari symbol at the left top of the desktop, click on Install Printer, and change pixel/lines from 1280 to 960; the former is for a wide printer, the latter for the letter-size width printer that most home users have. Simple? Sure. But is it spelled out that clearly in the generally excellent Atari Owner's Manual? No; in fact, the manual erroneously claims that both settings assume an eight-inch printed line. Oh, well. Expandability, Portability, Security So why consider the removable hard disk instead of the permanent hard disk? In three words: expandability, portability, security. True, three 44-megabyte hard disks are not the same as one 132-megabyte hard disk. If you have things that need gigantic hard disks, smaller removable hard disks may not be your optimum solution. But particularly because of partition size limitations in many operating systems, most people in the Atari world may find the removable hard disks just fine. For those people having access to more than one removable hard disk system (e.g., at work and home), how great it would be to be able to transport hard disks back and forth like floppy disks--or to exchange with other Atari removable hard disk users. And even with only one removable hard disk drive, privacy and security are enormously improved if the main user keeps one hard disk cartridge and allocates separate ones to spouse, kids, or other users. Furthermore, the removable hard disk now makes it possible to easily acquire substantial collections of software on one hard disk, e.g., 112 floppy disks from the Current Notes Public Domain/Shareware Library. Other benefits? Well, disk speed is virtually the same as most comparable hard disk drives. And the ability to keep adding 44 megabyte removable disks at about $80 each can quickly overcome the initial cost advantage of a comparable size fixed hard disk drive. Backup Still Is Backup What about backup? Can you backup the removable 44 disk to another 44 disk? Not with only one removable hard disk drive. You still have to put those 44 megabytes somewhere before you can back them up. You can backup up the 44 to floppies--one at a time--just like a fixed hard disk drive. Otherwise, it's more outlay for a backup tape device or another hard disk drive. But ... why backup any hard disk stuff--except very selectively to floppy? If, like me, you don't have massive data files that must have hard disk speed, why not continue saving your data files to floppies? Like a couple power user authorities I consulted, I've decided to install only application programs on hard disk. After that grim day when the hard disk inevitably crashes, sure, I'll have to again tediously load applications over a week or two. But no rush. As I need the programs, I'll load them. I won't risk losing any valuable data files to the hard disk. I may temporarily load some large data files such as spreadsheets to the hard disk for occasional top speed use, but I'll save them permanently to floppies, which also are backed up on other floppies. Another potentially expensive action I notice more with the hard disk is the need to reboot the system for certain programs. Even switching back and forth between low and medium resolution eventually gluts the Atari ST RAM, requiring a reboot. Since reboots are like turning a light switch on and off, bulb and computer life are shortened with each startup jolt they receive. Such is the price when even megabytes of RAM become glutted by larger and larger programs and increased switching between them. Compatibility Problems Now my desk is neat with all those hundreds of floppy disks retired--except for a dozen or so active data file disks. Right? Wrong. It will take another month at least to cull through all the floppies, load them to hard disk, test them and fool with the ones that won't operate right, then winnow down to truly hard disk compatible hard core. It's unfortunate that so much software won't operate right on hard disk. Let me rephrase that: It's stupid and negligent for any software developer today to write any program that will not operate on hard disk. By punishing the majority of honest users for the minority of software pirates, copy protection schemes have shackled many programs to the point where they are not competitive. Furthermore, a pox on developers who cannot write a decent exit sequence to their programs. Much of the joy and efficiency of having a computer is lost when programs must stumble along on slow floppy disk drives and with clumsy or non-existent exits that shock the computer system with needless reboots. Why the emotion? For elegance and speed, my Atari is the closest I'll ever come to owning a Ferrari. And after spending about $1,000 to tune it even finer, it is infuriating to discover how many inconsiderate or inept programmers have, in effect, shackled it with a governor. Conversely, many programmers deserve tremendous credit for unselfishly--and profitably--sharing their brilliant creations that greatly improve not only the quality of our lives, but the quality of work we, in turn, produce for others. May they prosper forever--and keep improving things so much that soon I'll be able to convince my better half: "Gee, you know ... we really need 4 megabytes of memory ... and that Atari laser printer ... and a STACY ... would you believe a TT? ... and ..." (exit to sound of demented shrieking). Available from many Atari dealers or Supra Corporation, 1133 Commercial Way, Albany, OR 97321, orders telephone (503) 967-9075. List price: $749.99. * * * * * * * * * #a000000 #b000000 #c7770007000600070055200505552220770557075055507703111103 #d #E 98 12 #W 00 00 16 01 1E 11 08 A:\*.*@ #W 00 00 0D 08 2A 0B 00 @ #W 00 00 0E 09 2A 0B 00 @ #W 00 00 0F 0A 2A 0B 00 @ #M 00 00 00 FF A FLOPPY DISK@ @ #M 00 01 00 FF B FLOPPY DISK@ @ #T 00 03 02 FF TRASH@ @ #F FF 04 @ *.*@ #D FF 01 @ *.*@ #G 03 FF *.APP@ @ #G 03 FF *.PRG@ @ #F 03 04 *.TOS@ @ #P 03 04 *.TTP@ @